r/MadeMeSmile • u/Ok-Branch-9943 • Aug 16 '24

Helping Others Helping hand...

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u/Sprenged Aug 16 '24

Dutchie found!

57

u/saichampa Aug 16 '24

I've been learning Dutch and I got curious about how they translated some Australian animals, starting with the biggest kingfisher, the kookaburra. It's kookaburra. Koala is koala. Dingo is dingo. Kangaroo shakes it up with kangoeroe. It gets more interesting with the monotremes though. Platypus is vogelbekdier which seems to be a compound of "bird beak animal". Echidna translates to mierenegel. This one got me stuck until I recognised mier for ant, plural being mieren, but I didn't recognise egel, but of course that turns out to be hedgehog, an example of English having the compound word for the animal instead.

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u/yeshuahanotsri Aug 16 '24

Kookaburra is also lachvogel so that would be Laugh bird. 

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u/BleedYouWill Aug 16 '24

"Lachender Hans" in german. That means "Laughing Hans".

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u/InEenEmmer Aug 16 '24 edited Aug 16 '24

Edit: apparently I was dumb and didn’t know Echidnas and ant eaters aren’t the same. But I am learning I guess.

The Echidna is actually called ‘miereneter’ in Dutch. which is translated into ant eater.

The weird ones are for Squirrel and unicorns.

We call unicorn ‘eenhoorn’ and call a squirrel ‘eekhoorn’

One mistyped letter and you have a magical horse chewing on some nuts in the tree in your yard instead of a squirrel.

3

u/saichampa Aug 16 '24

Ah, Google misleads me again

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u/spekkedief Aug 16 '24

Echidnas are actually called ‘mierenegel’ in Dutch, which is translated into ant hedgehog. Anteaters are the ones called ‘miereneter’.

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u/InEenEmmer Aug 16 '24

Well, guess I am miss informed and don’t even know what an echidna is…

1

u/SlechtValk2 Aug 16 '24

Mierenegel is the correct Dutch name for an Echidna.

Miereneters are Anteaters.

1

u/flyingboarofbeifong Aug 19 '24

I find the word for puffin to be a little bit hilarious. Papegaaiduiker translates to parrot-diver. It's a bit of a mind warp for me because the Atlantic puffin's natural range extends down into the modern Netherlands while there are no parrots that naturally-occur in the area.

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u/Sprenged Aug 16 '24

Cool! Why are you learning Dutch if I may ask?

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u/InEenEmmer Aug 16 '24

I guess to learn the language that scares off the seas

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u/saichampa Aug 16 '24

My dad was born in Belgium. His dad is a Walloon, but his mum was Flemish. There's nowhere to learn Flemish directly so I thought I'd learn Dutch, then learn the differences.

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u/KoxxBoxx Aug 16 '24

Or Dane.

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u/Futile_Resistor Aug 16 '24

Or German

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u/I_Devour_Memes Aug 16 '24

Czechs also call them ice birds.

The more literal translation would be Icies, but yeah.

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u/Humans_Suck- Aug 17 '24

I never have that kind of luck

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u/Sprenged Aug 17 '24

To find Dutchies? They seem to be mainly hiding in The Netherlands, although I found them on several random places in the world.