What does the word h*ll mean in your language

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actually "helvete" probably comes from old "go to hell"

hel used to be the norse word for hell, and is also where english got it.

words are all very old. i love that theres a viking rune w the word "rassin" in it. and yes, it means what you think it means
rass is kept in norwegian
i dunno if the english word "ass" is related, but it'd surprise me if its not

Hmm, I know that 'Hölle' is hell in German. Other than that, I don't know much.

Italian - inferno

Italian isn't my first language, but it's the only language other than English that I speak.

i was just half-assedly trying to figure out what hell was in latin. i assumed it was infern-something. us or um or whatever.
germanic seems to go for the hel- thing, latinic/romance for infern-

now for french and romanian anyone? :I

It's just 'hel' in Dutch. Heaven is 'hemel' but for both places goes, they only exist as feelings on earth and not places to visit after one dies.

(IMO)

hemel?
norwegian: himmel

i talk to two dutch speakers online, dutch is almost comically similar to nordic languages phonetically it sounds very different, but in writing its very similar

Yep, that's true about the similarities, I think. Same base language wise.

My grand father spoke Swedish, he was in the flower bizz, and as a kid I always laughed when he was on the phone doing business with a Swedish client. (um, the moments I was around my grandparents place when that happened.... duh).

There are probably more than a thousand words we can easily understand visa versa in our languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German and Dutch).

Maybe I should follow my grand father's choice to learn one Scandinavian language since Holland seems to go tropical (qua T) lately. I dislike this damp heat very much so but that going way off topic, I guess.

French: enfer, I think.

jahanam in arabic/persian/urdu
inferno in portuguese
infierno in spanish

dont we have any romanians here?

romanian is cool, similar to italian, i was astounded the one only time i started to ask a romanian about words :I

i can also check w a chinese friend! hell in chinese, thats bound to be groovy

don't forget finnish

welllll i dont know anybody finnish
i do know a chick who decided to learn finnish for no other reason than to torment me tho (please dont ask. no, i got nothing against finnish.), so i can ask her next time.

I noticed this too, there's a lot of similarities. For example "occhi" means "eyes" in Italian, and in Romanian it's "ochii". And "happiness" is "felicita" in Italian and "fericirea" (or something like that) in Romanian.

(The only Romanian words and phrases I know are from the song "Dragostea din Tei", BTW.)

i remember arrivederci being 'la revedere' <--and its the only thing i know. i got a romanian chat friend too, but havent seen her around in... years...

we dont usually think of romanian as a romance language cus of the slavic influence, but the country name should really be hint enough. i even heard someone remark "you think they speak latinic just cus of the name?" "yes"

Hel is indeed the Norse equivalent. Hel was both the Norse underworld, and the goddess who ruled over it.

The word itself comes from an old proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to hide' or 'to cover'. The latter half of conceal is from the same root, as are hole, cell, cellar and hollow. (I was going to give you a link to the etymology section of the American Heritage Dictionary at bartleby.com, but it appears to have gone. Darn.)

Edited: No, wait, it's been archived. Check this out:
http://web.archive.org/web/200712162227 ... IE214.html

Anyway...In England, a hellier used to be someone who worked in the trade of covering over a roof with thatch or tile. There's record of an old game, like tag, in which 'hell' was a designated tree or other marker that the people being chased could run to for to be immune - hidden - from being caught. And in the Bible, 'hell', like the Hebrew Sheol which it translates, is just the grave as a place where bodies are covered over with earth.

Last edited by ThatRedHairedGrrl on 08 Jul 2009, 3:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yup, you got it right. It's ''helvede'' in danish
But we pronnounced it kinda like ''helved'' instead. Unless you're speaking very grammatical correct