What’s more important: to drink your daily cup of coffee or to make love?
For monolingual globetrotters, it may be a question of which is easier to pronounce.
‘Love’ in languages on each continent
amor Spanish America
Liebe German Europe
upendo Swahili Africa
ask Turkish Middle East
pag-ibig Filipino Asia
You may have to set aside your carnal desires (or hire an interpreter, or gesticulate wildly, or crack open a phrase book, c’mon….or travel with your loved one), but at least you should be able to get your caffeine fix when the travel bug bites.
‘Coffee’ in languages on each continent
café Spanish America
Kaffee German Europe
kahawa Swahili Africa
kahve Turkish Middle East
kape Filipino Asia
The word for coffee starts with the same sound made by 3 letters: K, Q, and C
K
kaffe Swedish
kahvi Finnish
koffie Dutch
kawa Polish
ka-feh Hebrew
kava Ukrainian
kaféo Greek
kophe Russian
kope Hawaiian
kia-fey Chinese
koohii Japanese
Q
qahwah Arabic
C (hard)
café Portuguese
caffè Italian
ca phe Vietnamese
coffee English
Sea-faring merchants in the 1400s-1600s managed to bungle their way through their lovers’ names in every port and improperly pronounce or spell the source name for “coffee”.
Traders exchanged bags of coffee along with the name for their commodity, swapping Ks for Qs for Cs at the start of the word and Vs for Ws for Hs for Fs for Phs in the middle.
Pretty much except in the motherland of Ethiopia, where it’s still called Bunna. Home is where the heart is, and to thee we stay true.
