Social Question

raum's avatar

In how many languages do you know how to say “dolphin”?

Asked by raum (13206points) September 2nd, 2019
9 responses
“Great Question” (1points)

When I was in high school, I made the mistake of marking English as my second language on a school form. (I learned it concurrently.)

I was called to the office. They sat me down and asked me to point at objects to test my language proficiency.

I was pretty amused because my English is pretty good. But I also found their choice of objects to be pretty interesting.

One of the cards they held up had a picture of a dolphin. Which has become my personal gauge for language fluency.

So…how many languages can you say “dolphin” in? No cheating and googling!

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Answers

Demosthenes's avatar

I know dauphin, delfino, and deflin (which is a word for “dolphin” in many languages). The European words seem to all borrow from the same source. I don’t know the word for “dolphin” in any non-European language.

elbanditoroso's avatar

Dolphin in Hebrew – is Dolfin דולפין

flutherother's avatar

Only one. Out of curiosity I looked up the Chinese for dolphin, which is haitun, or sea pig.

Demosthenes's avatar

An old name for “dolphin” in English was mereswine which also means “sea pig”. interesting.

ragingloli's avatar

The real question is: Can you say dolphin in Dolphin?
I bet you can not, you monoglot primitives!

JLeslie's avatar

Two. English and Spanish.

I don’t think knowing the word dolphin demonstrates fluency.

A friend of the family teaches Spanish and she has told a story about not being able to recall the word for straw. Straw for a glass of soda. My husband was born and raised in Spanish, and I know words he doesn’t. Words like rise, as in low rise jeans. I sold clothes in Spanish and he’s a guy. Lol.

Brian1946's avatar

One.

@raum

What was the other language that you were concurrently learning?

Pinguidchance's avatar

Two, put an epiglottal stop to this polyglottous flippancy. Everyone’s heard of the Dolphin of France.

AshlynM's avatar

One, English.

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