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From: etev05@festival.ed.ac.uk (O Kraemer)
Subject: Re: Most Internation Written Word
References: <3gi2n2$njj@newsbf02.news.aol.com>   <STOLFI.95Feb2162000@stack.dcc.unicamp.br> <3h4gsh$ncp@net.auckland.ac.nz>
Message-ID: <D4051J.1sw@festival.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 18:08:05 GMT
Lines: 50

asi_beh@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz (Tim Behrend) writes:

>In article <STOLFI.95Feb2162000@stack.dcc.unicamp.br>, stolfi@stack.dcc.unicamp.br (Jorge Stolfi) says:
>>
>>
>>    > [D. Tilque:] The best words so far are golf, neon, opera, polo,
>>    > radar, radio, veto, and virus.  They are all in at least 19 of
>>    > these languages: Albanian Basque Czech Danish Dutch Estonian
>>    > Finnish French German Hungarian Indonesian Irish Islandic
>>    > Italian Latvian Lithuanian Norwegian Polish Portuguese Rumanian
>>    > SerboCroatian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish Turkish Welsh.
>>    > 
>>    > Words not found:
>>    >   golf in Albanian, Latvian
>>    >   neon in Lithuanian, Estonian
>>    >   opera in Albanian
>>    >   radar in Estonian, Indonesian  <---------------****
>>    >   veto in Latvian    ^^^^^^^^^^
>>    >   virus in Estonian, Latvian  
>>    > 
>>    > I'd appreciate it if anyone can fill these holes or extend my list of
>>    > languages.

In Chinese: golf = gao'erfu
	    neon = nihong
May not look like the same words but are pretty good renderings of a
Chinese speaking these words in English and are both accepted neologism.  

>>    > [A. Judzis:] I have an Aussie friend who swears that 'mango' is
>>    > universal.

>Mango, from Malay mangga, may be fairly universal in European languages
>or other languages introduced to mangos by European trade. I would
>suspect, however, that in SE Asia where this fruit is a native, each
>regional language would have a different word for it. In Javanese,
>for example, the mango is called 'pelem' (the /e/'s are schwas).

If you count China in SE Asia you'd have an example against you: 
mango = mangguo. But you're right in regard of southern Chinese
dialects, though I was taught that the word for "mango" in Taiwanese
(which I unfortunately forgot) was originally an "aboriginal"
(shandiren) word.

May I forward another entrance to the competiton: 
How about 'encore' (as shouted at the end of a concert, for example)?
I've heard it in several Asian countries (though for the life of me I
wouldn't know how they'd spell it). At least in China it's "anke" (the
characters for "peace" and "can, may").

					Oliver
