Call for help!
I need your silly baby/toddler nicknames/endearments! Especially if you're from another country! For instance, in France mothers often call their children "mon petit chou" which means "my little cabbage." In Ecuador, using "guagua" means baby, but even though it's still Spanish, the same word means "bus" in Puerto Rico! And of course, here in the South we have "puddin'" and "punkin'" and the like.
Get the gist? If so, bring 'em on! I need:
• The phrase in its original language
• How to pronounce it
• The country of origin
• What it means in English
• Any odd facts that go with it, like the bus thing.
Thanks guys!
Get the gist? If so, bring 'em on! I need:
• The phrase in its original language
• How to pronounce it
• The country of origin
• What it means in English
• Any odd facts that go with it, like the bus thing.
Thanks guys!
Labels: General
posted by Elizabeth O. Dulemba at
4:13 PM
16 Comments:
OK, in Spain the most common is:
-PEQUE. Abreviation from "pequeño" meaning "small". Pronounced "péke"
Hope this helps!
Thanks Koldo! Keep 'em comin' y'all!
:)
e
The Chinese often use, "baobao" or "baobei," meaning, roughly, "treasure."
My family has passed down the nickname geeber. It gets shortened to geeb. It was a name my great grandparents used and they homesteaded in eastern Colorado. Who knows where they got it!
My (eastern European--Russian--Jewish) grandmother used "Bubala" with all of us. Not sure what it means literally, although a web search seems to give meanings along the lines of "sweetheart." She also commonly added "ala" to the end of all our names--so I'd be "Janala," that sort of thing.
(Landed here from Janni's LJ) My grandmother always used to call us "vilde chaya" (VILL-deh CHAH-yah, with a throaty "ch"). It's Yiddish for "wild animal," but it sounded affectionate! (Plural, vilde chaim.) Also, I hear tell that the Germans use "Liebchen" (LEEB-chin, again with that "ch" sound), meaning "darling" or "sweetie."
My friend Janni sent me here. I'm Icelandic btw. My two favourite Icelandic baby endearments are rassgat and rúsína.
Rassgat is pronounced something like rr-Ah-ss-g-ah-dh and rúsína like
rr-OU-s-ee-nah. Emphasis on first syllable.
Rassgat is extremely silly as literally it mean asshole in English and it can mean that in Icelandic as well but when said in a cutesy voice about or to a child (or a cute animal), you are definitely using it as an endearment.
Rúsína is also silly but not as silly. It means raisin.
You guys ROCK!! These are FANTASTIC! Tremendous help - thanks SO much!
:)
e
We lived in Germany for a bit and heard "mein Schatz," which was "treasure" or "precious."
My grandmother (southern background) called us "little bit." As in,
"eat some more carrots, little bit."
Happy writing!
British phrases;
"tilly mint", no idea what it means, but it's quite common and has been aroung for a while
"kidda" which I think is the Liverpudlian version of the well known "kiddo"
and that more personal to me, my mum calls me and my sister "creamy whirls" which i think was an old chocolate product and also ryhmes with girls.
In Norwegian, you often hear people say: "lille venn" (little friend) or "lille skatt" (little treasure) to a baby or toddler.
Actually, my blog name, "Chookooloonks," is a term of endearment for children in my homeland of Trinidad & Tobago. While I don't write about my daughter much anymore, the name of the blog stuck!
okay, I don't follow directions:
it's pronounced just like it looks:
CHOO-koo-loonks.
And it doesn't mean anything. It's just a little word that's fun to say. :-)
These are WONDERFUL!!!
I'm still looking for endearments from Poland, Thailand, Kenya and/or Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and India especially.
If anybody knows someone who can help - please point them to my blog!
Thanks!
:)
e
Re: Icelandic
You can also combine the two and call your baby "rúsínurassgat" - which for some reason doesn't bring up any distrubing mental images unless you translate it into English :þ
Others are mostly nonsensical - krúsídúlla (crew-see-doo-lah) - which I'm pretty sure is something you'll find on a doily or a lacy pattern.
My father always uses "kerlingin mín" - for a girl or "karlinn minn" - for a boy - . My brother and I have picked up on it as well but I'm not sure how common it is. Karl and Kerling are words usually used to describe an old man or an old woman - rough translation would be my old girl or my old boy.
You know, since Bubbie in Yiddish is "Grandma," I wonder if "Bubalah" doesn't also really mean something like "my old girl" or "my little old lady." Huh.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home