What are some non-English words meaning "bastard"?

December 6, 2007 1:18 PM

What are some non-English words meaning "bastard"?

This is for the purposes of naming my kitten.

I mean "bastard" literally. I had no luck with sites for foreign-language swearing - none I could find allowed me to input a certain word & get its translation in multiple languages.

posted by UbuRoivas to writing & language (45 comments total)

"bastardo" is spanish.
posted by thinkingwoman at 1:29 PM on December 6, 2007

You might do better searching for "illegitimate child" instead of "bastard".

In Japanese, 隠し子 or 私生子 or 私生児 or 庶子..
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:31 PM on December 6, 2007

If I remember rightly, batard is French for bastard (also a type of bread).
posted by sephira at 1:31 PM on December 6, 2007

dictionary.com pages have multi-language translation at the bottom.
posted by whatzit at 1:36 PM on December 6, 2007

Mamzer.
posted by piro at 1:40 PM on December 6, 2007

"salaud" is probably a better French word for bastard (Reference (my ailing memory): Huis Clos, J. P. Satre)
posted by plinth at 1:40 PM on December 6, 2007

Yiddish: mamzer (pronounced "mom-zer")
posted by ubiquity at 1:40 PM on December 6, 2007

I might be wrong, but I think ramzadi (RAMzardee) is punjabi for "fatherless".
posted by Solomon at 1:47 PM on December 6, 2007

Solomon, I think you may be thinking of the feminine version of Haramzada , Haramzadi . Even though it doesn't say anything about Punjabi in the article, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same there too.
posted by sa3z at 1:52 PM on December 6, 2007

nice to find out about those dictionary.com translations.

so far, i think Hungarian: fattyú is the front-runner. i was tending towards something eastern european, since the mother is named Pichka.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:13 PM on December 6, 2007

Bastardo in Italian, via Babelfish.
posted by limeonaire at 2:15 PM on December 6, 2007

sa3z: most likely. that would be analogous to bahasa indonesian: anak haram (anak = child)
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:16 PM on December 6, 2007

Growing up in a German family, my dad often used to say "Drecksack" which I later found out to mean "bastard."
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:36 PM on December 6, 2007

Ibn haram/bint haram (son/daughter from illegitimacy)
Ibn sharmuta/bint sharmuta (son/daughter of a whore)
posted by evariste at 2:38 PM on December 6, 2007

Ticălos is a sort of slangy form of "bastard" in Romanian. It's got a nice sing-songy sound.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 2:48 PM on December 6, 2007

"Drecksack" which I later found out to mean "bastard."

not so. it means dirtbag.
he's calling you a prick or an asshole, which fits the OPs intention of swearing in another language but isn't what he meant.

der Bastard is german.
posted by krautland at 3:00 PM on December 6, 2007

french word for "illegitimate son" is "bâtard" ("salaud" is an insult).
posted by Baud at 3:07 PM on December 6, 2007

mamzer is also hebrew (biblical/rabbinic/modern)
posted by prophetsearcher at 3:14 PM on December 6, 2007

"also," in addition to the yiddish mentioned above
posted by prophetsearcher at 3:14 PM on December 6, 2007

王八蛋 (wangbadan) is a Chinese word commonly used where we'd say "bastard."
posted by pravit at 3:17 PM on December 6, 2007

Oh, I see you wanted literal translations. Nevermind.
posted by pravit at 3:18 PM on December 6, 2007

btw hungarian is not eastern european in terms of linguistics, only in terms of geography;. also, i assume that you know what 'pichka' means in a number of eastern european languages? why not name the kitty in a similarly anatomical manner?
posted by barrakuda at 3:33 PM on December 6, 2007

The olde word store was tickling me with förbaskad but that means 'damned'*. Swedish can't do anything more interesting than bastard I'm afraid. OK, there are lots of slang terms but literal? You get one choice.

Oh, wait. You can also use utomäktenskapligt barn which translates to "child born out of wedlock".
posted by trinity8-director at 4:19 PM on December 6, 2007

OK, there are lots of slang terms but literal?

slang terms, yes please.

by "literal" i meant in the sense of terms for children born out of wedlock, as opposed to "a nasty sort of person".

the more perjorative the slang, the better.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:35 PM on December 6, 2007

also, i assume that you know what 'pichka' means in a number of eastern european languages? why not name the kitty in a similarly anatomical manner?

i'm open to suggestions, but i thought "bastard" (in a perjorative sense) was appropriate for a son of a pichka.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:38 PM on December 6, 2007

One of the nastiest swear words in swedish is Fan (pronounced more-or-less 'fawn'). It means The Devil and is the worst thing you can say.
posted by trinity8-director at 4:45 PM on December 6, 2007

Løsunge is an old-fashioned pejorative once used to describe children born out of wedlock in Norwegian, literally "loose child".
posted by esilenna at 5:00 PM on December 6, 2007

One of the nastiest swear words in swedish is Fan (pronounced more-or-less 'fawn'). It means The Devil and is the worst thing you can say.

Maybe I could make a play on that, and call her Fanny?

That would be in keeping with the Pichka motif (down under at least, where "fanny" is something different - if anatomically near to - what the Americans call a fanny)

Hm, Fanny Fattyu?
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:04 PM on December 6, 2007

This is English, so it's not really what you want, but just in case, I've always loved the term "bar sinister" to denote a literal bastard child -- as in Simon Bar Sinister from Underdog. The bar sinister is a heraldic device in coats of arms that indicates someone born out of wedlock. When I was old enough to learn what the phrase meant, I remember being thrilled beyond belief that there was a kiddie cartoon character on a show my mom let me watch whose name was, more or less, Simon the Bastard.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:10 PM on December 6, 2007

Arabic: وَلَد غَيْر شَرْعي (Pronounced sorta like "wah-led ghayr shahr-ee")
Chinese (Simplified): 私生子
Chinese (Traditional): 私生子
Czech: nemanželské dítě
Danish: uægte barn; bastard
Dutch: bastaard
Estonian: sohilaps
Finnish: äpärä
French: bâtard
German: das uneheliche Kind
Greek: μπάσταρδος
Hungarian: fattyú
Icelandic: óskilgetið barn, bastarður
Indonesian: anak haram, anak jadah
Italian: bastardo
Japanese: 私生児
Korean: 사생아
Latvian: bastards; ārlaulības bērns
Lithuanian: pavainikis
Norwegian: lausunge
Polish: bękart
Portuguese (Brazil): bastardo
Portuguese (Portugal): bastardo
Romanian: bastard
Russian: внебрачный ребёнок
Slovak: nemanželské dieťa
Slovenian: nezakonski otrok
Spanish: bastardo
Swedish: oäkting
Turkish: gayrimeşru çocuk
posted by miss lynnster at 8:35 PM on December 6, 2007

(other people will have to help you with pronouncing the words written in alphabets I don't know)
posted by miss lynnster at 8:37 PM on December 6, 2007

Plenty more here! (I think I've found a new favorite site for foreign swear words!)
posted by miss lynnster at 8:53 PM on December 6, 2007

miss lynnster: thanks for the new swear site. doesn't work here, for some reason, but i'll try again at home.

those ones from dictionary.com...i suspect that many are actually the polite, technical terms, not the more perjorative / slang terms.

ārlaulības bērns, for example, is literally "out-of-wedlock child".

similarly, Slovak: nemanželské dieťa & Slovenian: nezakonski otrok look like they probably follow the pattern of [not-legitimate child].

Lithuanian: pavainikis is promising...it might have a Latvian equivalent, since the languages are closely related. "Pavains" rings a bit of a bell...i might ask mum ;)
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:19 PM on December 6, 2007

Finnish: äpärä is also nice, as is mamzer.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:22 PM on December 6, 2007

Well, the other site will probably be far less nicey-nicey.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:32 PM on December 6, 2007

Farsi: حروم زاده (Haroom-Zaadeh)
posted by lenny70 at 10:39 PM on December 6, 2007

beware: the Russian phrase in miss lynnster's post above is simply "out of wedlock child". Bastard, yes, but not the least bit of a swear.
posted by blindcarboncopy at 11:52 PM on December 6, 2007

btw hungarian is not eastern european in terms of linguistics, only in terms of geography

I don't think "eastern european" has any linguistic meaning but the geographical one.

True, Hungarian is not an Indo-European language. Neither are Turkish or Chuvash or Estonian (and some other small languages), all of which are spoken in Eastern Europe.

If by "eastern european," one means the dominant language "group," I suppose that would imply the Slavic branch of the Indo-European family - Polish, Russian, Czech, Serbo-Croatian and many more.

But, Hungarian, Turkish, Chuvash and Estonian aren't the only non-Slavic languages spoken in Eastern Europe. There's also Romanian (a Romance language), Albanian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Greek, various forms of Romanes, and many more - especially if you stretch the definition of Eastern Europe to include all the former-Communist territories on the European side of the Urals.

Anyway you look at it, I doubt the cat will care.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 12:38 AM on December 7, 2007

Farsi: حروم زاده (Haroom-Zaadeh)

That's correct, but it should be noted that that's spoken Farsi. In proper/written Farsi it would be "Haraam-aadeh", which means "born of illigitemacy". And btw, "haraam" is Arabic and "zaadeh" is Farsi.

There's another expression that means bastard in Farsi, and that is "Valadeh-Zana". I'm pretty sure one or both of the components are Arabic in origin, but anyway, it means "result of fornication".
posted by Devils Slide at 1:51 AM on December 7, 2007

Whoops, Haraam-Zaadeh not Haraam-aadeh.
posted by Devils Slide at 1:52 AM on December 7, 2007

I'm not going to correct "illigitimacy". No sir.
posted by Devils Slide at 1:55 AM on December 7, 2007

beware: the Russian phrase in miss lynnster's post above is simply "out of wedlock child"

yes, the russian word would be (anglicising) bratchnye, no?

* pages languagehat *

But, Hungarian, Turkish, Chuvash and Estonian aren't the only non-Slavic languages spoken in Eastern Europe. There's also [...] Latvian, Lithuanian

yes, i meant it only in a geographical sense. the baltic languages (including old prussian) are a different species altogether (remembering that estonians aren't balts, but finno-ugrics)
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:28 AM on December 7, 2007

"salaud" is probably a better French word for bastard

No, because it doesn't mean 'bastard,' it's a generalized insult. Remember:

I mean "bastard" literally.

The problem with this is that the literal sense of 'bastard' isn't used as an insult in that many languages. Yes, the Russian above is the exact equivalent of "child born out of wedlock," but there isn't any colloquial version, because that's not how Russians insult each other—the conventional equivalent is сволочь (svóloch'), which doesn't literally mean that at all. Same goes, I presume, for the other languages for which an "official" term is given ('illegitimate child'). But even if you're wedded to the literal equivalent, there are some good ones there (I too like the Hungarian).

Other Greek terms are nothos and moulos, by the way.
posted by languagehat at 11:12 AM on December 7, 2007

ξώγαμο also means the same thing in Greek (it's vulgar but not up to real swearword status).
posted by ersatz at 12:15 PM on December 7, 2007

OK, reading languagehat's comment to mean that fattyu is a perjorative term, I think I've found the winner. Thanks, all!
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:29 PM on December 7, 2007