Honeymoon is such an interesting word. The Japanese have a fun way of translating the word (as covered on my wedding blog). The French literally translates it as “moon of honey,” as seen on Etymonline.com:
1540s, hony moone, but probably much older, “indefinite period of tenderness and pleasure experienced by a newly wed couple,” from honey (n.) in reference to the new marriage’s sweetness, and moon (n.) in reference to how long it would probably last, or from the changing aspect of the moon: no sooner full than it begins to wane.
French has cognate lune de miel, but German version is flitterwochen (plural), from flitter “tinsel” + wochen “week.” In figurative use from 1570s.
Specific sense of “post-wedding holiday” attested from c.1800; as a verb in this sense from 1821.
Given German’s interesting translation of the word, how do other languages translate honeymoon? Here are 65 translations of the word honeymoon:
In text:
| * Afrikaans: honeymoon * Albanian: muaj mjalti * Azerbaijani: bal ayı * Basque: eztei * Belarusian: мядовы месяц * Bosnian: medeni mjesec * Bulgarian: меден месец * Catalan: lluna de mel * Cebuano: honeymoon * Chichewa: kokasangalala * Croatian: medeni mjesec * Czech: l√≠b√°nky * Danish: bryllupsrejse * Dutch: huwelijksreis * English: honeymoon * Esperanto: mielmonato * Estonian: mesin√§dalad * Filipino: pulutgata * Finnish: h√§√§matka * French: lune de miel * Galician: l√∫a de mel * German: Flitterwochen * Greek: μήνας του μέλιτος * Haitian Creole: my√®l * Hausa: gudun amarci * Hmong: honeymoon * Hungarian: m√©zeshetek * Icelandic: Br√∫√∞kaupsfer√∞ * Igbo: honiimuunu * Indonesian: bulan madu * Irish: mh√≠ na meala * Italian: luna di miele * Javanese: bulan madu | * Kazakh: бал айы * Lao: honeymoon * Latin: honeymoon * Latvian: medus mēnesis * Lithuanian: medaus mėnuo * Macedonian: меден месец * Malagasy: honeymoon * Malay: bulan madu * Maltese: honeymoon * Maori: taime * Mongolian: бал сар * Norwegian: bryllupsreise * Polish: miesiąc miodowy * Portuguese: lua de mel * Romanian: lună de miere * Russian: медовый месяц * Serbian: медени месец * Slovak: medov√© t√Ω≈ædne * Slovenian: medenih tednih * Somali: toddobobax * Spanish: luna de miel * Sundanese: peuting mimiti * Swahili: honeymoon * Swedish: smekm√•nad * Tajik: баланкиной * Turkish: balayı * Ukrainian: медовий місяць * Uzbek: asal oyi * Vietnamese: tun trăng mt * Welsh: mis m√™l * Yoruba: ijfaaji tktaya ni ibr igbeyawo * Zulu: kukankosikazi |
My favorite translations have to be: Chichewa’s kokasangalala, which means “to enjoy” and Haitian Creole’s my√®l, means “bee.” Toddobobax in Somali just sounds fun to say.
Do you have a favorite translation of the word honeymoon?
I like the way the French translation sounds with the accent “lune de miel” 🙂 Curious how Latin’s translation is “honeymoon”…doesn’t sound like the rest of this legalese/scientific language.
[…] When you have a spreadsheet that can automatically do translations like that, you can make blog posts like, “How to say “honeymoon” in 65 languages. […]