Mermaids all over the world

[LittlePolly]

Heey,
There are a lot of mermaids all over the world. And the most country's have their own language. I live in Holland and I get to learn Dutch, English, German (and you can also chose for French, Spanish, Latin and Greek) I am verry interested in languages so I tought it might be fun if we could make a list of tipical mermaid words and translate them in other languages. It might be helpfull for some mermaids that are looking for supplies in their own country and don't know what it is.

Dutch:

Mermaid = Zeemeermin
Merman = Zeemeerman
Fish = Vis
Sea = Zee
Lake = Meer
Tail = Staart
Fluke = Vin
Scales = Schubben
Monofin - Monovin
Lycra/Spandex = Lycra/ Spandex
Neoprin = Neoprin
Neoprene = Neopreen
Chaulking = Kit
Latex = Latex
Silicone = Silicone
Fiberglass = glasvezel
Polycarbonate = Polycarbonaat
Fishnet = Visnet
Octopus = Octopus
Shell = Schelp
Seastar = Zeester
Seaweed = Zeewier
Beach = Strand
Tailmaker = Staarten maker

So these were a few Dutch mermaid words. feel free to make your own list in your own language down here. I hope you'll like it.

[AniaR]

Neat idea!

[SeaGlass Siren]

I speak Vietnamese.

Mermaid: nguoi ca (literal meaning is person-fish)
Dolphin: ca heo (literal meaning is fish pig or pigfish)
Tail: duoi
Lobster: thom hum (giant? shrimp)

These are the ones that I find most hilarious and interesting

[Mermaid Varshana]

Spanish:

mermaid: sirena

fish: peces

pool: piscina

to swim: nadar

to dive: bucear

whale: ballena

dolphin: delfín

Tailmaker: fabricante de las colas de sirenas

ocean: mar

beach: playa

Silicone and neoprene: silicona y neopreno

[Nyx]

I speak spanish! Venezuelan spanish at least XD
Mermaid - sirena
Merman -sireno
Fish -pez
Dolphin - delfin
Fin - aleta
Tail - cola
Scales -escamas
Ocean - oceano
Sea - mar
Shark - tiburon
Beach - playa

[Mermaid Momo]

I speak a little Japanese, going to start studying on my own next year since I'm at a new school that doesn't offer Japanese )

mermaid:ningyo/ mameido
fish: sakana
Ocean: umi
Whale: kujira
Dolphin: iruka

[Alveric]

Elvish (Quenya)

Lingwende=mermaid (fishgirl) :cool: Tolkien geeks rule!

[SeaGlass Siren]

I speak a little Japanese, going to start studying on my own next year since I'm at a new school that doesn't offer Japanese )

mermaid:ningyo/ mameido
fish: sakana
Ocean: umi
Whale: kujira
Dolphin: iruka

Andd a mermaid princess is ningyo-hime!!

[Merman Arion]

I will do the french part :D

Mermaid : Sirène
Merman : Triton
Fish : Poisson
Sea : Mer
Ocean : Océan
Lake : Lac
Pool : Piscine
Whale : Baleine
Dolphin : Dauphin
Shark : Requin
Beach : Plage
Sand : Sable
Wave : Vague
Tail : Queue
Fluke : Nageoire
Scales : Ecailles
Monofin : Monopalme
Lycra/Spandex : Lycra/Spandex
Neoprene : Néoprène
Caulking : Calfeutrage
Latex : Latex
Silicone : Silicone
Fiberglass : Fibre de verre.
Polycarbonate : Polycarbonate
Fishnet : Résille
Octopus : Pieuvre
Shell : Coquille
Sea Shell : Coquillage
Sea star : Etoile de Mer
Seaweed : Algues
Tailmaker : Tailleur
To swim : Nager
To Dive : Plonger

[Echidna]

German:

mermaid: Meerjungfrau, Seejungfrau, Nixe
merman: Nix, Nöck
fish: Fisch
sea: Meer
ocean: Ozean
lake: See
beach: Strand
dolphin: Delphin
whale: Wal
shark: Hai
tail: Schwanz
fin/fluke: Flosse
swim: schwimmen
dive: tauchen

[Echidna]

Chinese:

mermaid: renyu 人鱼 (literally: fish-person.
older words were nüshuijing/nüshuiyao/nüshuishen, meaning female waterspirit- not necessarily looking like tailed mermaid)
ocean: dahai 大海
fish: yu 鱼
lake: hu 湖
beach: shatan 沙滩
shark: shayu 鲨鱼
dolphin: haitun 海豚
whale: jingyu 鲸鱼 (wrongly worded, since a whale is not a fish :P)
swim: youyong 游泳
dive: qianshui 潜水
swimming pool: youxichi 游戏池

[Ariel-Starfish]

So cool! :p

[Mermaid Annariea]

Elvish (Quenya)

Lingwende=mermaid (fishgirl) :cool: Tolkien geeks rule!


YEEESSSS.
i tries to learn elvish forever ago. and failed at it :(

[Mermaid Danielle]

Elvish (Quenya)

Lingwende=mermaid (fishgirl) :cool: Tolkien geeks rule!

This is a fantastic idea! And Alvreic, this ^ is awesome!

[Patches]

This is definitely a wicked idea. :D

[SeaGlass Siren]

We should share different stories of mermaids from around the world too!

[Mermaid Allie]

This is cool! Darn I was going to do French! Haha

[Echidna]

Romanian:

mermaid: sirenă (females only. sorry dudes :P )
sea: mare
fish: pește
lake: lac
beach: plajă
shark: rechin (pronounced approx. "rek-yin")
dolphin: delfin
whale: balenă
swim: a înota
dive: a afunda, a scufunda
pool: piscină (man-made) , baltă (natural)

[Echidna]

ok, and since Italian is practically the same thing as Romanian (I don't speak italian btw, so feel free to correct it):

mermaid: sirena
sea: mare
fish: pesce
lake: lago
beach: spiaggia
shark: squalo, pescecane
dolphin: delfino
whale: balena
swim: nuotare
dive: affondare
pool: piscina; pozza


Let's hear some folk stories from different countries, people!
The older the better!
If you don't know any, visit your oldest living relatives and ask them! :D

[LittlePolly]

We should make a forum thread about cultures, country's , languages , country stereotypes, fun holliday stories and how people of your country think about the mermaid comunity. Anyone agrees with me?

[Mermaid Dottie]

Couldn't we we just expand the topic of this thread?

[SeaGlass Siren]

Yeah, I mean the thread is already called "mermaids all over the world"

[LittlePolly]

Yes that's what I meant but I didn't know how to say it in English, I'm on my ipod and google translate fails a bit xD Make a culture topic just like the monofin topic and the sexuality and the tailmaking thread :)

[LittlePolly]

Sorry for my poor English today. I'm not having my best day. And my dyslexia is worse when I type on my Ipod because I don't have a spelling check. Next week I have got my final exam for English ��

[SeaGlass Siren]

Oh ok xD then yes let's keep everything in here! :)

Polly do you have any mermai stories from your culture?

[LittlePolly]

Yes we do have. I will look them up for you tomorrow it's 12:30 here so I need to go and sleep xD we have ofcourse the story of the flying dutchmen ( I think they said something about mermaids in there) and some mermaid stories from te 16th century from the VOC shipping. Goodnight!

[Mermaid Momo]

Let's hear some folk stories from different countries, people!
The older the better!
If you don't know any, visit your oldest living relatives and ask them! :D

Anyone like to hear some black/african American mermaid tales? (There is one that can be a bit...sad I guess for people though)

[Mermaid Varshana]

Please! We'd love to hear it :D

[Mizuko]

Theres only one story I know of in Australian Aboriginal culture that KINDA has mermaids :P They call their stories/history 'Dreamtime'.
Its about the bunyip, who was orriginally a man but he was cursed into a monster because he did something horrible within his tribe (yeah, I cannot remember what it did that was so horrible, or maybe it wasn't mentioned because I believe I read it in a book for kids... >.<; ) He lived within the billabong (a lake left by the slowly changing bends of a river), and using his powers trapped beautiful women who came down to get water, turning them into water spirits. These water spirits were under his control and used their feminine ways to lure men to their deaths as the Bunyips revenge.

I suspect this Dreamtime story was used to prevent people from visiting billabongs alone, as salt water crocs were there.

[AptaMer]

I suspect this Dreamtime story was used to prevent people from visiting billabongs alone, as salt water crocs were there.

Salties, now that's one of the most dangerous marine animals around! In India they've attacked a number of people in the Indian Islands and northeast India. Fortunately in the seacost of India where I visited they're long gone. They used to live all along the coast of India from the border with Burma in the northeast to Kerala and the Malabar Coast in the southwest.

[LittlePolly]

The Mermaid of Westerschouwen. Westerschouwen is a little island in the province sealand. It used to be much larger then it is now.
Once upon a time there was al little shippersvillage on the island Westerschouwen. Because of the prosperity the people were verry proud, complacent and rude against others. You need help? do it yourself. You're poor? It's Your own fault! One day a fishing boat returnd with a unusual catch. In their fishnett they had a woman with scales and green hair. But she wasn't a normal woman, she had a fish tail. The villagers were jelling to her and calling her names. Fishwoman, Greenhairy, Scaleskin ( the words sound worse in dutch they don't have an exact translation xD) Suddely there was an other mermaid. Slowley the creature came near the villagers and they saw that it wasn't a mermaid but a merman. He didn't look like the mermaid, the merman had a pearl shine over his skin and his face looked grey and ugly (Sorry to all the merman out there but that's how the story discribed him.) The merman screemd and begd Please give me back my wife. Do not break us apart! She won't be any use to you, In fact if you don't put her back in the water she will die in less then an hour! Let her go and I will reward you! The villagers laughed at him and said, We found her so she is ours go back to were you belong. and they threw rocks at him. He was furious and doomd Westerschouwen. Day by day the little village dissapeard more in the ocean. The villagers left and became poor because their buisness stoped. Only a little part of the tower of Westerschouwen stayed.

So that was the story of the mermaid of Westerschouwen. I had a lot of work translating this so the other stories will come. The story's are written in old Dutch so it's harder to translate. I found some pictures I'll put them down here.
http://members.chello.nl/m.jong9/map12/Image7.jpg

This is the flag of Scouwen-Duivenland It's around the area of Westerschouwen
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/n/nl-ze0sd.gif

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/n/nl-ze)sd.jpg

There is also a song:
Westerschouwen, Westerschouwen,
Het zal je berouwen,
Dat je genomen hebt mijn vrouwe!
Westerschouwen, daarom zul je vergaan,
Alleen je toren zal blijven staan!
Maar als je me geeft mijn vrouw weerom,
Dan bouwen we om 't stadje wallen rondom.

Westerschouwen, Westerschouwen
You are going to regret it,
That you took my wife,
Westerschouwen that's why you will go down,
only your tower will stand.
But if you'll give me my wife back
I will build dunes around the village
(ofcouse in Dutch it rimes xD)

I hope you liked this!! I wil post more stories when I translate them ;-)

[Echidna]

Great story Polly!!
keep it coming!
Mermen are, by the way, in general described as grey-skinned, flat-nosed, and very aquatic-looking.
Nöck (german) are supposed to be horribly ugly, and so are the male merrows (described as "fish-monsters").



they're not cutesy, nice mermaids like we conceive them. They can sometimes shape shift, they lure men to their deaths, and can even share their spirits and or bodies with other women.

This was the general conception of water faeries, before modern times "cutesified" them!
I'll do some quaint celtic stories next which should elucidate :P

[SeaGlass Siren]

Polly that was amazing!!!

[Mermaid Dottie]

That was Rockin Polly!
I want to hear Daggersprez's now.
Pleeeeeaaase?

[SeaGlass Siren]

Yes yes ! I agree with the above statement! Her next!

[Mermaid Pickles]

Agreed! Now I'm curious! You have piqued my curiosity, even though I'm going to bed! I'll have to check tomorrow!

[Mermaid Miya]

In sweden we tell stories about the Näck. The Näck is a male water spirit who could change shapes and who played enchanted songs on the violin, luring women and children to drown in lakes and streams. These stories were told by worried parents to young kids so that they would never go alone and play by the water. Me myself have heard stories about him when I was a kid. :)


Here is a story about Tivedens unique red water lillies (swedish: näckrosor)


At the lake of Fagertärn, there was once a poor fisherman who had a beautiful daughter. The small lake gave little fish and the fisherman had difficulties providing for his little family. One day, as the fisherman was fishing in his little dugout of oak, he met the Näck, who offered him great catches of fish on the condition that the fisherman gave him his beautiful daughter the day she was eighteen years old. The desperate fisherman agreed and promised the Näck his daughter. The day the girl was eighteen she went down to the shore to meet the Näck. The Näck gladly asked her to walk down to his watery abode, but the girl took forth a knife and said that he would never have her alive, then stuck the knife into her heart and fell down into the lake, dead. Then, her blood coloured the water lilies red, and from that day the water lilies of some of the lake's forests are red.

[AptaMer]

Wow Mermaid Miya, that's hardcore!

Thanks for the story.

[Imbrielle]

Russian:

Mermaid: Rusalka (Русалка)
Mermaids: Rusalki (Русалки)
Sea/Ocean: Morye (Море)
Fish: Riba (Рыба)
Swim: Plavat' (Плавать)
Fin: Plavnik (Плавник)

[Merperson Danny]

Irish
Mermaid - Maighdean mhara (literally 'sea virgin')
Dolphin - Deilf
Fish - Iasc
Swim - Snámh
Sea/Ocean - Farraige
Beach - Trá
Another term for a mermaid from Ireland (but not in Irish) is Merrow. ^w^

[MermaidAine]

Anyone like to hear some black/african American mermaid tales? (There is one that can be a bit...sad I guess for people though)

Yes please Mermaid Momo!