´óÏó´«Ã½

Finnish forwards and backwards

I live in Finland. I hope I'll master the language one day. There are some amusing words to be found in Finnish. Poika is a boy, mies is a man, but poikamies, lit. boy-man, means a bachelor. °Õ²â³Ù³Ùö is girl so logically follows that a single woman is ±è´Ç¾±°ì²¹³¾¾±±ð²õ³Ù²â³Ù³Ùö, lit. boy-man-girl.As an aside, the Finnish language is supposed to have the longest palindrome (a word or phrase that is spelled the same forwards as backwards) saippuakauppias or soap salesman.

Sent by: Michael

Comments

Osian, Pontypridd, Wales 2009-07-18

In Welsh, there's "Lladd dafad ddall" - too kill a blind sheep. Very common in Wales!

Flag this comment

Lauren 2008-04-26

In Estonian, it's possible to make a noun meaning 'a bullet flying through a tunnel' which is also a very long palindrome: kuulilennuteetunneliluuk. An Estonian friend also told me a story about some boys who ask their father for bowls of milk, almost nonsense but with every word beginning with 'p'. I wish I could find out the words somewhere!

Flag this comment

Jonatas 2008-03-25

I know a great palindrome in Portuguese: Socorram-me, subi no onibus em Marrocos that means 'Help me, I climbed on a bus in Morocco!' Not much used in conversations as you can imagine.

Flag this comment

Aki 2005-09-14

±Ê´Ç¾±°ì²¹³¾¾±±ð²õ³Ù²â³Ù³Ùö is rarely heard in conversation. You would say sinkku. Which means 'single'.

Flag this comment

Marcin 2005-07-20

There's a sentence in Polish, which is a palindrome - Kobyła ma mały bok meaning 'the mare has a small side'.

Flag this comment

´óÏó´«Ã½ iD

´óÏó´«Ã½ navigation

´óÏó´«Ã½ © 2014 The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.