Apr 15, 2008

Say Hello to Europe

Hola. Bonjour. Guten Tag. Find them all (plus 32 others) below. This should enable you to greet people in their native language almost anywhere in Europe. Missing (regrettably) are Breton (spoken in northwestern France), Corsican (from the French island of Corsica, Napolean's birthplace), Galician (dominant in northwestern Spain), Sardinian (of Sardinia, an Italian island), and a few others. I will try to at least gather the information for these four languages mentioned. I have given the phonetic pronunciation of the greetings first, followed by the actual spelling. So here is your key to greeting Europe...

Albanian/toon-gyah-tyeh-tah/Tungjatjeta
Basque/kai-shoh/Kaixo
Bulgarian/zdrah-vay-teh/Здравейте
Catalan/oh-luh/Hola
Croatian-Serbian/zdrah-voh/Zdravo
Czech/dob-ree dehn/Dobrý den
Danish/ghor-da/Goddag
Dutch/dahkh/Dag
Estonian/te-rre/Tere
Færoese/huh-loh/Halló
Finnish/tehrr-veh/Terve
French/bõh-zhoor/Bonjour
German/goo-tin tahk/Guten Tag
Greek /yi-a sas/Γειά σας
Hungarian/yoh nah-poht kee-vah-nohk/Jó napot kívánok
Icelandic/hah-loh/Halló
Irish/dee-uh gwit/Dia duit
Italian/bwohn-zhoor-noh/Buongiorno
Latvian/svayks/svay-kuh (m/f)/Sveiks/Sveika
Lithuanian/svay-ki/Sveiki
Macedonian/zdrah-voh/Здраво
Maltese/bahn-joo/Bonġu
Norwegian/gud-dahg/Goddag
Polish/djen doh-bri/Dzień dobry
Portuguese/oh-lah/Olá
Romanian/bu-nuh zi-uah/Bună ziua
Russian/zdrahst-vooy-tyeh/Здравствуйте
Scottish/feh-skur mah (in afternoon)/Feasgar math
Slovak/doh-bree dien/Dobrý deň
Slovene/pohz-drahw-lyei-neh/Pozdravljeni
Spanish/oh-lah/Hola
Swedish/hay/Hej
Turkish/mehr-hah-bah/Merhaba
Ukrainian/doh-bri dehn/Добрий день
Welsh/shoo mai/Sut mae

Some quick notes on pronunciation:
1. I have tried to make the pronunciation key as natural for English speakers as possible. So go with your gut feeling on how to pronounce most of the letters. The letter "a" as pronounced as in "bat" unless it is followed by an "h." An "i" is always pronounced as in "bit." The letter "u" is pronounced as in "put" unless it is followed by an "h." The consonant combination "kh" is like the "ch" in the Scottish word "Loch." You will often hear this sound if you listen to speakers of German, Russian, or Arabic. The combination "zh" is as the "s" in "measure."
2. The letters in italics in the pronunciations show you which syllable to stress (emphasize) in the word.
3. The symbol "õ" that I have used in the French pronunciation is an aspirated "o." Just make an "oh" sound through your nose, and you will be very close.
4. In the Latvian example, the first greeting mentioned is used to greet a male, and the second is used to greet a female.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

In Russian you can also say Добрий день (like Ukrainian) and in Latvian - Labdien!

Good luck! Ruuta

Youthful One said...

Fantastic!

Any recommendations on where I can find more basic Romanian, with which I can greet my neighbor?

ajpolyglot said...

Yes. First of all, I will try to post a Romanian word list for you soon. Also, check out Lonely Planet's phrasebooks. They have a really good Eastern Europe one that has Romanian and several other languages. You can find it at Barnes and Noble.