A butterfly by any other name

Back when I was a QI 'Elf' and researching and writing the BBC TV show, I also worked on its Radio 4 sister show The Museum of Curiosity. If you don't know the show, it's hosted by QI creator John Lloyd (the man who also gave us Not the Nine O'Clock News, Spitting Image, Blackadder and co-wrote some bits of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with Douglas Adams) and a comedian guest curator. Then three people - usually one from the sciences, one from the arts and one from entertainment - are invited onto the show to donate something that they think is brilliant. 

It's a wonderful radio show and a much-needed antidote to more whingeing pessimistic shows like Room 101 or Grumpy Old Men. It also meant that I got to work with some astounding people including Buzz Aldrin, Sir David Frost, Terry Pratchett, Sean Lock, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Ken Dodd, Neil Gaiman, Pamela Stephenson and so many more.

Comedian and impressionist Harry Enfield was a guest on one of the shows and during the course of his episode, he told this joke: 

Five translators are arguing about which of their languages is the most beautiful. The English interpreter says, 'Oh, it’s English – English is so expressive. Think of the word butterfly. It gives you a wonderful image of a tiny creature flitting through the air. Beautiful.' Then the Frenchman says, 'Ah non, the French word for butterfly is so light, so airy – papillon ... papillon ... as light and delicate as tissue paper.' But then the Italian chips in and says, 'Surely the Italian is the most expressive? Farfalle. It even sounds like the beat of a butterfly's wings in the summer air.' But the Spanish interpreter disagrees. 'You're all wrong', he says. 'The Spanish word for butterfly is the most beautiful of all. Listen – mariposa ... mariposa ...' At which point the German translator frowns and says, 'And what is wrong with Schmetterling?' 

It's a fun joke, albeit a bit dated, but Harry was using it in the context of celebrating language as Humankind's greatest invention. It also led to an interesting off-microphone discussion about the word 'butterfly'. It's a curious linguistic anomaly that almost every language has a different word for the animal and that none of these words are linguistically related. Is there any other word that has so many  different translations? I can't think of one. 

Here are a few examples:

 Acoma (Native American)  - buh’rai 

Afrikaans (South Africa) - skoenlapper, vlinder 

Assamese (India) - pokhila 

Austria - falter 

Berber (North Africa) - tèfètuth 

Bulgarian (Bulgaria) - peperooda

Chechen (Chechnya)  - polla 

Czech - motýl 

Dagon - peplim 

Danish - sommerfugl 

Dutch - vlindeer

Farsi (Iran) - parvanè 

Gaelic (Ireland) - féileacán

Gujarati (India) - atangeo

Hmong (Vietnam) - pau npaim 

Hungarian - lepke pillango

Inuit (Greenland) - pakkaluak

Romanes "Gypsy" - peperuga 

Kamaba (Kenya) - kimbalut'ya 

Latvian (Latvia) - taurin

Malagasy (Madagascar) - lolo Malayalam 

Nepali (Nepal) - putali 

Romanian - fluture

Serbian - leptir 

Setwana (Botswana) - serurubele 

Sumatra Barat (Indonesia) - angiak 

Swedish (Sweden) - fjäril 

Tatar (a Turkic language) - kübelek 

Tok Pisin (New Guinea) - bataplai 

Welsh (Wales) - iâr fach yr haf 

West Armenian - titernig 

Wik-Ngathan (Australia) - kalpakalpay 

To see a full list of over 300 translations of 'butterfly' visit this site.

Isn't that extraordinary?