Christmas in all languages

[DaveAgain]

[*]Christ mass: English and Dutch
[*]"Jul": Nordic countries
[*]"Weihnachten" (holy night): German and Czech
[*]from Latin "natalis": Italian, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Irish and Gaelic
[*]"birth of God": Slavic languages[/list]

English straddles a bit here, we also have Yuletide which puts us with the nordics. A Yule Log is a chocolate swiss roll eaten in the Christmas season.

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Welsh Nadolig is apparantly an evolution of the latin, natalis.

[tungemål]

English straddles a bit here, we also have Yuletide which puts us with the nordics. A Yule Log is a chocolate swiss roll eaten in the Christmas season.

Yes, English is an overachiever also here. In fact aren't there 3 words for Christmas in English? Noel ("the first Noel").

[Iversen]

(...) Hungarian is different: Karácsony (maybe someone who knows some Hungarian can share what this means)

According to my research, etymology for Karácsony is uncertain, but maybe from a Bulgarian word for a Slavic holiday celebrated at the winter solstice.

According to my Pons dictionary the Bulgarians now say "коледа" (or "Божик" or "Божич") - no trace of that old solstice ceremony. Croatian similarlly has "bočeć" (derived from the word for God, "bog"), Serbian has Божић (same origin) and Slovak has got "Vianoce alebo vianočné sviatky" (or just sviatky) which must be a parallel to 'Holy night'. My one and lonely Ukranian dictionary plainly refused to translate 'Christmas', but then I got "Різдво" from Google translate, and that word is in the UK>EN section of the dictionary - weird. And heaven knows where that 'piadvo' comes from. Christmas eve in Ukainian is "Святвечір" (holy eve)... and then I immediately get suspicious about the Slovak word I just quoted - does it refer to all of Christmas or just to the eve (where Danish kids get their presents in order to make them shut up)?

Romanian has got "Crăciun" (or "Nașterea Domnului", the birth of the master) , and according to the Romanian WIkipedia that word may have started out as Latin "calatio" (something about a congregation of people to celebrate each new month (or moon)) - and then I look at tungemål's Hungarian etymology and immediately see a possible connection... Wiktionary has got it with (with two sources) and quotes the translation "calling, summoning". But some scholars think that "craciun" comes from Latin "creatio", and that's not funny at all..

On the other hand: When I searched for "коледа etymology" with Google Search the thingy told me that "People from around Straldja say that the name is derived from the Bulgarian word “to butcher,” because the primary ritual of this time of year is the slaughter of a pig. " Heaven knows where that information has been nicked, but if true "коледа" couldn't be a traced back to Latin "calatio" - however luckily Wiktionary comes up with another explanation, namely that "коледа" derives "From Proto-Slavic *kolęda, from Latin kalendae (“first day of the month”). Originally referring to a pagan winter festival, where carollers (typically men or children) visit households and wish the hosts an abundant and healthy incoming year."

By the by-way: "Până către sfârșitul secolului al IV-lea, nașterea lui Hristos se sărbătorea odată cu Boboteaza la 6 ianuarie" (Wikipedia.ro), or in other words: the birth of Christ was celebrated the 6. of January until the end of the 4. century, and the celebration there were apparently called Boboteaza (allegedly from "Baptist") or Epifania (from Greek). The Spaniards still see that day as more important than the 24. or 25. December, and they still call it "Epifania" or "Tres magos", and they make big parades to celebrate the occasion - or just to have fun on a cold day. Us Danes call it "Helligtrekongers aften" (holy three kings' evening), and we stopped celebrating it around 1770.

PS: Albanian also uses Epifania, while the Greeks have Θεοφάνια (God-appearance) or - more commonly - Χριστούγεννα (Christ-birth). Ancient Greek ἐπιφάνεια (epiphaneia) meant appearance (of God), but in HTLAL it somehow came to mean a sudden jump in language skills. ..

[Saim]

(...) Hungarian is different: Karácsony (maybe someone who knows some Hungarian can share what this means)

According to my research, etymology for Karácsony is uncertain, but maybe from a Bulgarian word for a Slavic holiday celebrated at the winter solstice.

According to my Pons dictionary the Bulgarians now say "коледа" (or "Божик" or "Божич") - no trace of that old solstice ceremony. Croatian similarlly has "bočeć" (derived from the word for God, "bog"), Serbian has Божић (same origin) and Slovak has got "Vianoce alebo vianočné sviatky" (or just sviatky) which must be a parallel to 'Holy night'.

Is this a typo or is it a mistake in Pons? The Croatian here is exactly the same as the Serbian — Božić.

[Dragon27]

According to wiktionary for the Slovak Vianoce

Derived from German Weihnachten (“Christmas”) by phonetisation of the first part of the word and translating the second part of the word, Nacht (“night”) to noc (“night”), like in Czech.

The Czech one is Vánoce.

What I found interesting is the word for Christmas in Sorbian:

Sorbian:
Lower Sorbian: gódy pl
Upper Sorbian: hody m pl

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Christmas#Translations

Apparently, the Proto-Slavic word *godъ (suitable, right time) came to mean "holiday, festive season" in West Slavic varieties and "year" in East and South Slavic (Russian - год). In Sorbian the plural of that word came to mean Christmas.

[Iversen]

According to my Pons dictionary the Bulgarians now say "коледа" (or "Божик" or "Божич") - no trace of that old solstice ceremony. Croatian similarlly has "bočeć" (derived from the word for God, "bog"), Serbian has Божић (same origin) and Slovak has got "Vianoce alebo vianočné sviatky" (or just sviatky) which must be a parallel to 'Holy night'.

Is this a typo or is it a mistake in Pons? The Croatian here is exactly the same as the Serbian — Božić.

Oops, my fault Pons is a Bulgarian<>German dictionary, so it can't be blamed. I can, because I grabbed a dictionary written in Latinitsa at my bookshelf and then returned to my laptop and inserted "bočeć" from memory when I wrote the rant above. But it's wrong in two ways: the word is also Božić in Croatian, but to boot the dictionary I had used was the Englesko-Srpski one from IP Books, which I rarely use because I try to do my Serbian studies in Cyrillic and therefore associate Latinitsa with Croatian. And therefore it had moved to the left of my Hrvatsko-Engleski Rječnik from Školska Knjiga in Zagreb, which only covers Croatian to English. And I suspected nada because I don't study Croatian ... yet.

To my shame I have to admit that I don't even own a Croatian dictionary in the other direction (yet - I have to get one somehow). I do however own two old two-way 'Serbocroatian' dictionaries in Latinitsa from before the civil wars, but I didn't consult those. However they also agree to say Božić ...

The good thing about this blunder is that I discovered a booklet about verb tables for Croatian on my shelves, published by guess who ... Pons!

[tungemål]

My one and lonely Ukranian dictionary plainly refused to translate 'Christmas', but then I got "Різдво" from Google translate, and that word is in the UK>EN section of the dictionary - weird. And heaven knows where that 'piadvo' comes from. Christmas eve in Ukainian is "Святвечір" (holy eve)... and then I immediately get suspicious about the Slovak word I just quoted - does it refer to all of Christmas or just to the eve (where Danish kids get their presents in order to make them shut up)?

I use the Wikipedia article on Christmas to find what word is used. That article exists in 222 languages.
I'm guessing the Ukrainian "rizdvo" comes from russian "Rozhdestvo", which is derived from "birth"

Romanian has got "Crăciun" (or "Nașterea Domnului", the birth of the master) , and according to the Romanian WIkipedia that word may have started out as Latin "calatio" (something about a congregation of people to celebrate each new month (or moon)) - and then I look at tungemål's Hungarian etymology and immediately see a possible connection... Wiktionary has got it with (with two sources) and quotes the translation "calling, summoning". But some scholars think that "craciun" comes from Latin "creatio", and that's not funny at all..

Well spotted!

According to wiktionary for the Slovak Vianoce

Derived from German Weihnachten (“Christmas”) by phonetisation of the first part of the word and translating the second part of the word, Nacht (“night”) to noc (“night”), like in Czech.

The Czech one is Vánoce.

Yes, I just lumped them (German and Czech) together since the Czech is derived from the German.

What I found interesting is the word for Christmas in Sorbian:

Sorbian:
Lower Sorbian: gódy pl
Upper Sorbian: hody m pl

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Christmas#Translations

Apparently, the Proto-Slavic word *godъ (suitable, right time) came to mean "holiday, festive season" in West Slavic varieties and "year" in East and South Slavic (Russian - год). In Sorbian the plural of that word came to mean Christmas.

That is indeed interesting. Thanks!

[Cainntear]

English straddles a bit here, we also have Yuletide which puts us with the nordics. A Yule Log is a chocolate swiss roll eaten in the Christmas season.

Yes, English is an overachiever also here. In fact aren't there 3 words for Christmas in English? Noel ("the first Noel").

To be fair, that's definitely an archaism that's gone completely out of use. The fact that it still exists in songs doesn't really mean it's a word per se.

[Iversen]

Ukrainian Різдво doesn't have to come from Russian - Wiktionary derives it directly from Old East Slavic рожьство (rožĭstvo) from Proto-Slavic *roďьstvo. And Russian got its Рождество Христово from the same source, but inserted an infix which isn't found in the Ukrainian word.

As for the Hungarian word: for geographical reasons it is likely to have come through Romanian, and ultimately it may be traced back to either Latin "calatio" or Latin "kalendae" - but anyway: Karácsony sounds deceptively like Romanian Craciun.

One thing more about Kalendae and koleda: thanks Dragon27's link to the Wiktionary translations page I now know that Lithuanian also has followed this trail with its Kalédo. Not so Latvian with its Ziemassvētki (winter + celebration), so the eason for the Lithuanian word must be that it once was part of a Polish-Lithuanian kingdom that streched all the way down to the Black see. Latvia (or Kurland) just became an administered area under that kingdom (1659) .

Wiktionary also confirmed my hunch about the origins of Božić: "Inherited from Proto-Slavic *božiťь. Technically a diminutive of bog (“God”), referring to baby Jesus."

And finally I found a minor surprise by circling through the Wikipedias: in Tagalog the word for Christmas seems to be .. Pasko . Maybe not bothersome for Anglophones, but "påske" in Danish as well as "pascua" in Spanish means Easter. How did that happen? Who couldn't see the difference?

[tungemål]

Happy Noel!
I'm so busy during this Yuletide, and I need to buy yule gifts.

This article claims that 'noel' in First Noel means 'news', but all other sources I found says it comes from 'Natalis'.

English straddles a bit here, we also have Yuletide which puts us with the nordics. A Yule Log is a chocolate swiss roll eaten in the Christmas season.

Yes, English is an overachiever also here. In fact aren't there 3 words for Christmas in English? Noel ("the first Noel").

To be fair, that's definitely an archaism that's gone completely out of use. The fact that it still exists in songs doesn't really mean it's a word per se.