Tuesday, March 31, 2009

That's Greek To Me

(Click on image for a larger version)

This graph was inspired by a comment by a reader on the blog Language Log:
When an English speaker doesn't understand a word one says, it's "Greek to me". When a Hebrew speaker encounters this difficulty, it "sounds like Chinese".
I've been told the Korean equivalent is "sounds like Hebrew".
Has there been a study of this phrase phenomenon, relating different languages on some kind of Directed Graph?

The most interesting observation was made by commentator Rachel Fulton:
It's fascinating that when the Chinese find something unintelligible, they assume it is a product of Heaven while everyone else (according to the graph) assumes that it is another human language they can't understand.


I wonder why the author has forgotten to put an arrow from Hindi to Farsi...

I find this graph very interesting - I didn't know mutual incomprehension could be mapped...Also, I didn't know that for Arabs the proverbial unintelligible language is Hindi and for the French - Javanese...Where and when did the French hear and learn about the existence of Javanese?
(The data for the graph has been taken from Wikipedia and Omniglot)

Comments (16)

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interesting artcle bones..... Chinese call then "heavenly",..... :) maybe we could all follow that......
I say Maths has always been Sanskrit to me :)
1 reply · active 832 weeks ago
That's a good one!
Maybe we should draw a graph for all the Indian languagers, Bones? :)

In English "It's Greek to me" seems to be commonly used. I can't offhand think of a language that we Marathi- speaking Indians refer to in this way.
1 reply · active 832 weeks ago
I can't think of a language Bengalis refer to either...
How about "as strange as Swahili" for a change.
Interesting post, Bones. I can't think of any I would refer to even though I have no clue about many.

How about 'what politicians speak has always been a dead language to me'?
Great graph that one :D
how about what we say in hindi?
''main urdu bol raha tha kya ?samajh mein nahi aata?'':D
1 reply · active 832 weeks ago
They missed that one!!!
Well, that graph is all Greek to me! Or should I say "kaala akshar bhains baraabar"?!
How interesting Bones! Never really thought about this one before.
Sanskrit is the best :) and I do remember I have to mail you the ads :) just fighting with time.
That was interesting! Never thought of this before.. Anything I didnot understand was always greek :)
very interesting one bones.. for me anything I couldn't understand can be named in many.. not confined only Greek.. it can be hindi, Urdu, Gujarati.. why go to greece whcen I have so much here :)
Very Interesting read ..i always say if i dont understand "dirty politics language... " :-)
1 reply · active 832 weeks ago
Welcome!!! 'Dirty politics language' is a good one...

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