Languages

[plumtreeblossom]

Swiped from bookly. The quiz and my answer guesses are under the cut. I didn't do very well, but I'm mostly posting because the foreign language loving beowabbit (and probably other folks) will probably be able to nail a few more. Also added numbers to facilitate this.



1) Merry Christmas -- English
2) geseënde Kersfees
3) gëzuar Krishtlindja
4) gleckika Wïanachta
5) miilaad majiid
6) Shnorhavor Surb tsnund
7) Eguberri on
8) З Божым нараджэннем -- Russian?
9) subho baradin
10) sretan Božić
11) Nedeleg laouen
12) весела коледа -- Other Russian?
13) Christmas nay hma mue pyaw pa
14) bon Nadal
15) 圣诞快乐 -- Chinese probably (but Mandarin or Cantonese?)
16) bon Natale -- let's say Portugese
17) sretan Božić
18) veselé Vánoce
19) glædelig jul
20) vrolijk Kerstfeest
21) gojan Kristnaskon
22) häid jõule
23) gleðilig jól
24) hyvää joulua
25) joyeux Noël -- French
26) noflike Krystdagen
27) bon nadâl
28) bo Nadal
29) Ahali tseli
30) frohe Weihnachten
31) kala christougenna
32) jwaye nowel
33) mele Kalikimaka -- Hawaiian (I only know this because of the song)
34) christmas sameakh
35) Krismas ki subhkamna
36) boldog Karácsonyt
37) gleðileg jól -- something Scandinavian
38) naragsak a paskua
39) selamat Natal
40) Nollaig shona
41) buon Natale -- Italian (I want to cheat on the similar ones above)
42) sugeng Natal
43) meri kurisumasu -- Japanese (as rendered in Romaji)
35) assegass amegass
36) Noheli nziza
37) seun-tan chu-ka-hae-yo
38) Noela we pîroz be
39) souksan van Christmas -- gotta be Dutch
40) felix dies Nativitatis -- Latin?
41) priecīgus Ziemassvētkus
42) bun Denâ
43) su Kaledoms
44) vrolik Kersfees
45) schéi Chrëschtdeeg
46) sreken Bozik
47) arahaba tratry ny Krismasy
48) selamat hari natal
49) il-milied it-tajjeb
50) Nollick ghennal
51) meri Kirihimete
52) god jul
53) eydet mobârak
54) Wesołych Świąt
55) feliz Natal
56) baxtalo Krečuno
57) un Crăciun fericit -- Romanian (okay I did cheat, but I suspected)
58) C Pождеством Xристовом -- still another Russian!
59) ia manuia le Kerisimasi
60) Nollaig chridheil
61) Срећан Божић -- how many Russias are there?
62) krisimas yakanaka
63) Chrismas joon wadhayoon
64) vesele vianoce
65) vesel božič
66) dobro dedek
67) feliz Navidad -- Spanish
68) god jul
69) maligayang pasko
70) ia orana e te noera
71) สุขสันต์วันคริสตร์มาส -- something Arabic-ish
72) Noeliniz kutlu olsun
73) Shuldyr Ymuśton
74) Z Rizdvom Hrystovym
75) Mừng Chúa Giáng Sinh
76) Nadolig llawen

Have at it.

Comments

[beowabbit]

1) Merry Christmas -- English
2) geseënde Kersfees -- maybe Afrikaans? Maybe Flemish?
3) gëzuar Krishtlindja
4) gleckika Wïanachta
5) miilaad majiid
6) Shnorhavor Surb tsnund
7) Eguberri on
8) З Божым нараджэннем -- Belarusyn (pretty close to Russian)
9) subho baradin
10) sretan Božić -- same as #17; Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian
11) Nedeleg laouen
12) весела коледа -- I'm guessing Bulgarian
13) Christmas nay hma mue pyaw pa
14) bon Nadal
15) 圣诞快乐 -- Chinese (can't tell which version from the written form)
16) bon Natale -- maybe Sardinian?
17) sretan Božić -- same as #10; Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian.
18) veselé Vánoce -- maybe Czech or Slovak?
19) glædelig jul -- Danish, I think
20) vrolijk Kerstfeest -- Dutch
21) gojan Kristnaskon -- Esperanto, but they left the hat of the ĝ in ĝojan
22) häid jõule -- something closely related to Dutch and German; maybe Flemish? Don’t know what the language is, but know that the first word is cognate with “good”
23) gleðilig jól -- Icelandic or Faroese (see 37, which is the other)
24) hyvää joulua -- maybe Finnish?
25) joyeux Noël -- French
26) noflike Krystdagen
27) bon nadâl
28) bo Nadal
29) Ahali tseli
30) frohe Weihnachten -- German
31) kala christougenna -- Greek, I think
32) jwaye nowel -- Haïtian Creole, I’m pretty sure
33) mele Kalikimaka -- Hawaiian
34) christmas sameakh
35) Krismas ki subhkamna
36) boldog Karácsonyt
37) gleðileg jól -- Icelandic or Faroese (see 23, which is the other)
38) naragsak a paskua
39) selamat Natal -- I'm *guessing* Malay, or maybe Indonesian.
40) Nollaig shona
41) buon Natale -- Italian
42) sugeng Natal
43) meri kurisumasu -- Japanese (as rendered in Romaji)
35) assegass amegass
36) Noheli nziza
37) seun-tan chu-ka-hae-yo -- Korean (transliterated); I can only figure this out because of the distinctively Korean transcribed vowels
38) Noela we pîroz be
39) souksan van Christmas
40) felix dies Nativitatis -- Latin
41) priecīgus Ziemassvētkus -- Lithuanian, I think
42) bun Denâ
43) su Kaledoms
44) vrolik Kersfees -- OK, I take back #2; I think this is Afrikaans.
45) schéi Chrëschtdeeg
46) sreken Bozik -- Macedonian with the diacritics missing.
47) arahaba tratry ny Krismasy
48) selamat hari natal -- Turkish, I think
49) il-milied it-tajjeb -- looks like Arabic
50) Nollick ghennal
51) meri Kirihimete -- something Polynesian (but not Hawai'ian)
52) god jul -- Swedish, I believe
53) eydet mobârak
54) Wesołych Świąt -- Polish
55) feliz Natal
56) baxtalo Krečuno -- I'm *guessing* Albanian, from the x.
57) un Crăciun fericit -- Romanian
58) C Pождеством Xристовом -- Russian
59) ia manuia le Kerisimasi
60) Nollaig chridheil
61) Срећан Божић -- Serbian or Bosnian (in Cyrillic); this is a slight variant of #10 and #17, and would be spelled Srećan Božić in Latin characters.
62) krisimas yakanaka
63) Chrismas joon wadhayoon
64) vesele vianoce
65) vesel božič
66) dobro dedek
67) feliz Navidad -- Spanish
68) god jul -- same as #52; Swedish, I think.
69) maligayang pasko
70) ia orana e te noera
71) สุขสันต์วันคริสตร์มาส -- Thai (AFAIK, the only language that uses the Thai alphabet)
72) Noeliniz kutlu olsun
73) Shuldyr Ymuśton
74) Z Rizdvom Hrystovym -- maybe transcribed Ukranian?
75) Mừng Chúa Giáng Sinh -- Vietnamese, with the awesome Vietnamese funky diacriticals
76) Nadolig llawen

[kissoflife.livejournal.com]

I say 48 is either Indonesian or Malaysian! *nods*

[beowabbit]

You are right; I am wrong: Malay.

[beowabbit]

Actually, a little further Googling reveals (unsurprisingly) that it’s both!

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

Could 61 be Bulgarian? I think their variant of Cyrillic uses those characters.

If 74 is Ukrainian, why isn't it in Cyrillic? Might it not be Czech or another Slavic language that uses the Roman alphabet?

[beowabbit]

Could 61 be Bulgarian? I think their variant of Cyrillic uses those characters.

Nope, the only language written in Cyrillic that uses ћ is Serbo-Croat. (Or now we would say Serbian, since Croatian isn’t written in Cyrillic any more.) I had a year of Serbo-Croatian, so I am pretty confident about this.

Bulgarian is written in a subset of the Russian alphabet (by which I mean there are no letters used in Russian that aren’t also used in Bulgarian, although ъ occurs a whole lot more frequently in Bulgarian, where it’s a vowel).

If 74 is Ukrainian, why isn't it in Cyrillic? Might it not be Czech or another Slavic language that uses the Roman alphabet?

Some of these are in the original writing systems, and some of them are transcribed. I think they’ve been collected from a lot of different sources.

(By the way, in the 19th Century, Ukranian was written in Roman letters in some regions. But that’s not what this is.)