Comments on: ahchoo atchim kychnut wa-hing!

Question: ahchoo atchim kychnut wa-hing!

dmo — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 07:33:51 -0800

How is the sound of a sneeze written and pronounced in languages other than English?

I've seen a great site about the sounds animals make (woof woof / wan wan / au au, etc.), but I've never seen seen something similar and comprehensive for the sound of a sneeze. Obviously, this will require romanization of a lot of languages. But even if the language is written with the Roman alphabet, a pronunciation guide would be helpful. Here's what I have so far - corrections are welcome!

ah-choo (English)
ap chkii (Russian)
atchim (Brazilian Portuguese)
hatschi (German/Dutch)
hakushon (Japanese)
achís (Spanish - are there variations?)
aak-chheen or aak-chhoon (Hindi)
a-psik (Polish)
Han-chee (Chinese - which?)
Itush (Hebrew)
Kychnut (Czech)
Wa-hing (Indonesian)
A-tchouin (French)

By: mailhans

mailhans — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 08:04:28 -0800

dutch: ha tsjoe

bless you.

By: kokogiak

kokogiak — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 08:25:08 -0800

I love "Wa-hing" - that's my Dad, exactly.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 08:29:16 -0800

The Russian is ?????, which is transliterated apchkhi (or ap-chkhi -- sometimes they put a hyphen in). The -kh- is a fricative, like -ch in Bach.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 08:29:51 -0800

Dammit, I replaced the Cyrillic on preview, but it still came out as ?????.

By: subatomiczoo

subatomiczoo — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 08:58:50 -0800

in my language it's "apciha!"

i wish i could tell you what my language is called. we used to call it serbo-croatian, then it became either serbian, croatian, bosnian, or montenegrin and i can't bring myself to call it any of those.

i grew up in the tito and communism era when no one acknowledged sneezes--well, my some of my parents' generation did, with "nazdravlje!"--but this was considered religious or reactionary.

because sneezes were no longer acknowledged, there was inevitably the silence after a sneeze, which we, in bosnia, would fill with "kihnu", meaning "i just sneezed"

now each group has taken to replying to sneezes with appropriate responses based on ethnicity. serbs, croats and montenegrins say "nazdravlje" and bosnian muslims say an arabic phrase.

i have been made crazy by all this. i hate what has happened to our people and our so-called language.

By: Dick Paris

Dick Paris — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 09:06:33 -0800

Correction on the French: atchoun (Excusez moi!)

By: brownpau

brownpau — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 09:23:46 -0800

Tagalog, "hatsing," pronounced "hut-CHEENG", used as both verb and onomatopeia.

By: elgilito

elgilito — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 09:49:40 -0800

Correction on the French: atchoun (Excusez moi!)
Correction on the correction: it's actually atchoum. For instance, Atchoum is the name of Snow White's Sneezy in the French version of the movie.

By: matteo

matteo — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 11:03:08 -0800

Italian: ecciù

By: subatomiczoo

subatomiczoo — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 11:18:51 -0800

o yes, pronunciation guide for "apciha" would be

ap-tsee-ha,

sometimes shortened to just "tsee-ha"

By: Raspberry

Raspberry — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 11:24:11 -0800

I've never heard of itush in Hebrew--what I know is either la-bree-oot or leev-ree-oot (actual Hebrew) or ah-soo-ta (Aramaic, borrowed into Hebrew). I haven't been to Israel for several years though so this may be new-ish slang (borrowed from Arabic, I'd venture to guess).

By: furtive

furtive — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 11:28:33 -0800

Yeah, in French (even Québecois) it's atchoum.

By: furtive

furtive — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 11:32:01 -0800

I also have it on good authority that in Sweden it's written attjo

By: Plutor

Plutor — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 12:08:09 -0800

Raspberry: "I've never heard of itush in Hebrew--what I know is either la-bree-ootor leev-ree-oot (actual Hebrew) or ah-soo-ta (Aramaic, borrowed intoHebrew). I haven't been to Israel for several years though so this maybe new-ish slang (borrowed from Arabic, I'd venture to guess)."

I believe those are the "bless you"-equivalents, i.e. what you say after someone has sneezed. The question is looking for the transliteration of the sneeze itself.

By: severiina

severiina — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 13:33:16 -0800

In Finnish: atsii (or atsuu)

By: blogenstock

blogenstock — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 14:19:56 -0800

Catalan: axtim or atxum

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 16:35:19 -0800

hatschi (German/Dutch)

For Dutch, that seems a little off target. It would be spelt "hat(s)joe" (as mailhans said, but commonly written as one word) or "hatsjie" (less frequently used). The "s" in the first one isn't used all the time it seems, but I don't think I've ever seen "hatsjie" spelt without an "s". (Full disclosure: native speaker, minor in linguistics.)

They're pronounced [hah-TCHOO] like the English equivalent, but with a shorter "OO" part, or [hah-TCHEE], again with a shorter final vowel.

By: dmo

dmo — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 18:29:00 -0800

To thank everyone, I feel compelled to share that "aciu" in Lithuanian (pronounced ahchoo with stress on the ah) means "thank you". Here's a recording of Lithuanian for "thank you very much."

By: Dick Paris

Dick Paris — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 19:09:51 -0800

Correction on the correction: it's actually atchoum. For instance, Atchoum is the name of Snow White's Sneezy in the French version of the movie.

Oops. Sorry.

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 00:18:35 -0800

Kyrgyz: apchoo

By: mummimamma

mummimamma — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 00:41:12 -0800

Norwegian: atsjo!
Which -along with host, host (cough, cough of course)- seems to be the most common sound in the office this week. April colds...

By: blogenstock

blogenstock — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 03:03:29 -0800

apologies for my dyslexia/dysgraphia...

I meant: Catalan: atxim or atxum.

It seems that atxem is another accepted spelling.