Wiktionary:Foreign Word of the Day/Focus weeks

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Every so often, focus weeks are held in the Foreign Word of the Day. During focus weeks, we choose words or phrases with a certain theme, highlight languages with some special features, or show words that have particularly interesting or unusual properties.

Proposals[edit]

To propose a focus week, create a new section with the theme of the focus week you’d like to propose. Also be sure to explain a bit more about your proposal if it’s not clear. Once a proposal has been made, 7 words need to be nominated for that focus week. The nomination process is the same as for regular foreign words, and is explained at Wiktionary:Foreign Word of the Day/Nominations.

Idioms and proverbs[edit]

See also: :CAT:Idioms by language and :CAT:Proverbs by language

We should probably feature this more often, there is a wealth of witticisms and funny phrases out there! :) —CodeCat 23:01, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Focus on etymology by language[edit]

We could have a week where we feature words in various languages that are all derived from the same attested language (i.e. not a proto-language), preferably terms that aren't used in English. For example, we could have a week of Terms derived from German, like French vasistas (from was ist das) and Japanese アルバイト (arubaito) (from Arbeit). —Angr 10:51, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From English[edit]

See also: :CAT:Terms derived from English

From Dutch[edit]

See also: :CAT:Terms derived from Dutch

From Slavic languages[edit]

See also: :CAT:Terms derived from Slavic languages

From Low German varieties[edit]

From German[edit]

See also: :CAT:Terms derived from German

From Spanish[edit]

See also: :CAT:Terms derived from Spanish

From French[edit]

See also: :CAT:Terms derived from French

From Arabic[edit]

See also: :CAT:Terms derived from Arabic

From Hebrew[edit]

From Japanese[edit]

From Ancient Greek[edit]

Animals and plants[edit]

The isn't a focus-week so much as a collection of related words: words for animals, which have discernible literal meanings. If these are featured, I think their literal meanings should be mentioned, e.g. [[tmakwa]]'s blurb could say "beaver, literally 'tree-cutter'".

I see no problem in it being a focus week! And both Meta (1) and I (2) had the FWOTD template display literal meanings before, so it’s fine. — Ungoliant (Falai) 23:45, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I like it. There's a Hebrew word in the general noms section that's like this type as well. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 01:20, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Creatures from mythology and folklore[edit]

Words with unusual combinations of sounds[edit]

If we can find enough words, there could even be two focus weeks: one for words with unusual consonants (such as the cluster words, and 五), and one for words with unusually long strings of vowels, or unusually many phonemically distinct vowels. (I was going to suggest that CodeCat's nomination of jääaeg would work for that, but I see that despite its spelling it has a fairly tame pronunciation. I'm sure there are more vowel-heavy words out there.) - -sche (discuss) 22:19, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

False friends[edit]

(moved from the main page)

False-friend pairs in foreign languages[edit]

(moved from the above section)

  • Lower Sorbian: łono (no citations, no translation, pronunciation) "hug, armful" and Polish: łono (no citations, no translation, pronunciation) "outer part of a pregnant woman's stomach, outer lower part of a stomach" ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:14, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Japanese: 風船 (no citations, no translation, pronunciation) "balloon" and Dungan Chinese: 風船／风船 (fēngchuán) (no citations, no translation, no pronunciation) "airplane", the Chinese pronunciation table states that the Dungan pronunciation is experimental, but the transcription suggests that this is only an orthographic false friend. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:52, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Words that look like the names of countries or languages[edit]

(Not sure how good of an idea this is for a theme, but it occurred to me.) - -sche (discuss) 20:26, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say it's as good a theme as any, there have been a few rather specific thematic focus weeks (and two focus months) now. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 10:02, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
see also

False cognates[edit]

Barely attested languages[edit]

Languages with only a few attested words. Per common sense, the pronunciation requirement should be waived.

Eponyms[edit]

See also: :CAT:Eponyms by language

Opposite meanings in different languages[edit]

This one is really hard, but the idea is so cool... I doubt we'll ever be able to find five more such sets, though. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 00:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Opposite meanings in the same language[edit]

Set from January 3 to 9. — Ungoliant (falai) 15:32, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Languages of Australia[edit]

Languages of Mexico[edit]

Languages of Brazil[edit]

Onomatopoeia[edit]

See also: :CAT:Onomatopoeias by language

There are a few angles we can use here. Onomatopoeia with additional interesting metaphorical meanings (eg Latin tinnio - "I jingle", but also "I pay" and "I cry"), onomatopoeia for concepts that do not have equivalents in English (eg Japanese ドキドキ (dokidoki) - "with a racing heart"), and onomatopoeia which are very different to their English equivalents (Russian кря-кря - "quack"). Smurrayinchester (talk) 12:34, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Middle Ages[edit]

Palindromes[edit]

See also: :CAT:Palindromes by language

Maybe these should have some minimum word length? aa is a word in 19 languages, and ana in 23. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:57, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

List DTLHS (talk) 18:21, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Anagrams between different languages[edit]

Maybe these should have some minimum word length? A pair like German ab and Irish ba would be pretty boring. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:55, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Angr Full list, length >= 8 (excluding some common languages), if you would like to look for more examples. DTLHS (talk) 17:50, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Words for water[edit]

To recognize World Water Week, how about a week of words for "water" from around the world? For example, 28 August a native North American language, 29 August a native South American language, 30 August a European language, 31 August an African language, 1 September an Asian language, 2 September an Aboriginal Australian language, and 3 September an Oceanic language? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:45, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Angr: I like the idea! I don't have any specific languages in mind, so feel free to nominate some here or just set them yourself. If I get there and you haven't already done it, I'll just choose some. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 02:41, 1 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'll go through water#Translations and see if I can find seven that already meet our requirements. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:10, 1 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If only we had a long list of words for water in different languages... --WikiTiki89 14:55, 1 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If only. There are hardly any at all at water#Translations. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:57, 1 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I like it. I recommend choosing some entries that have more intricate senses, not just [[water]]. I’ll see if I can find some. — Ungoliant (falai) 21:35, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some possibilities: these all already have either a pronunciation section and at least one reference, or at least two references. To make sourcing easier as well as to keep the list interesting, I'm only listing LDLs. There are so many Malayo-Polynesian languages that I'm treating them separately as their own "continent". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:19, 5 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Words for water in languages around the world
North America
South America
Europe
Africa
Asia (non-Malayo-Polynesian)
Australia/Melanesia (non-Malayo-Polynesian)
Malayo-Polynesian languages
These are all I have time for now; I'll add more in the days to come. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:19, 5 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Any with extra meanings, like Ungoliant suggested? —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 02:46, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't been keeping track, but some of them might also mean "river" or "rain", and some might mean specifically "fresh water". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:23, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Would majem work? It seems it would also be the first word derived from the common Semitic word for "water". Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 08:55, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but it would need a CFI-compliant quotation since Dutch is a WDL. I wasn't originally thinking of slang words, but I guess there's no reason to exclude them. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:25, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Done, feel free to in/exclude it whatever you prefer. I've also split the senses and added Bargoens labels and a slang tag. One of the quotations should give the hint there's a strong link with Amsterdam as well. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:24, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Lingo Bingo Dingo: thanks; could you add English translations of the quotes? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:19, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Angr: Okay, done. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 12:55, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Food and drink[edit]

Dialectal words from unexpected places[edit]

Words from dialects that are not usually associated with the language (e.g. Russian Hebrew, United States Portuguese, Texan Silesian).

Category:Namibian German has some more examples, and I take it the reference to Texas Silesian is to wiater. - -sche (discuss) 19:22, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For the holidays: Gift-giving[edit]

(2016 discussion and featured words removed; remaining can be used again for another occasion?) — Mnemosientje (t · c) 18:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Crime[edit]

See also: :CAT:Crime

Pseudo-anglicisms[edit]

See also: :CAT:Pseudo-anglicisms by language

Autological terms[edit]

See also: :CAT:Autological terms by language

Probably best to avoid the trivial ones equivalent to a language's name, "word", "noun" or "polysyllabic" (though a monosyllabic word for "monosyllabic" should be fine). ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 13:18, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Blends[edit]

See also: :CAT:Blends by language
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