Original link: https://blog.fivest.one/archives/6160
There is a slang term in English: it’s Greek to me. It means that this thing is too difficult to understand, “as difficult as Greek”.
So, in other languages, when describing something that is difficult to understand, do you mean “like what language”? What language, for them, is complex enough to be used in everyday metaphors?
There is a Greek to me page on the Wiki, which lists how to describe a thing that is difficult to understand in many languages.
Often used as a metaphor for “difficult” languages: Spanish, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Turkish, Chinese.
Then……
- Spanish: like Greek/Chinese
- Greek: like Chinese
- Hebrew, Japanese: like Chinese
- Turkish→ French→ Russian→ Chinese
- Finally, as the Chinese at the end of the chain: Difficult is like a book from heaven (or ghost painting talisman)…
I tried to draw this contempt chain and drew it:
Drawn in this way, there is indeed a sense of superiority in Chinese. But in fact, there are some languages that are not in this network. For example, Vietnamese thinks Khmer is difficult to understand; there are also some languages that do not use other languages to describe difficult to understand, such as Korean. They will say:
- Like chicken paw / cat paw print / dog paw print
- like bird barking/dog barking
- Alien-like/Alien-Language
- There’s a phrase in German: I only understand train stations (others, like this one in front of me, don’t understand at all).
I think of this language chain because of another topic today: “turkey” in English means “Turkey”, then, which country’s bird is the turkey in other languages?
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