this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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[–] dojan 60 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (10 children)

What I think is interesting about the word flea market is that it's a calque in pretty much all languages.

The Swedish word is "loppis", which is a cutesy colloquial term for "loppmarknad." Loppa, meaning flea, and marknad meaning market.
Flohmarkt in German also means lit. "flea market."
Marche aux puces is French, where "puce" means flea, I think this might be the origin of the term.
Japanese has the casual term フリマ (fleama), short for フリーマーケット, which is just the English term "flea market", there's also the term 蚤の市, just meaning "market of fleas."

I believe Portuguese calls it a "thieves' market", but Spanish, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Dutch, and Mandarin all use their own native words for "flea market"; mercado de pulgas, mercato delle pulci, Блошиный рынок, Bit Pazarı, Vlooienmarkt, 跳蚤市场.

For all of the concepts and such that are identical across cultures, few things have universal names. Typically they enter the language as loanwords as well (e.g. karaoke, from Japanese '空オケ', hollow orchestra), so the term "flea market" stands out to me. I'm sure there are lots of other similar things I'm not aware of though.


Edit: It's worth mentioning that other than Swedish (native), English, and Japanese, I don't speak any of the other languages. I've asked a Russian-American friend about the Russian term, and a friend in Taiwan about the Mandarin term. Otherwise I've checked dictionaries and the like. Don't take my word as fact, I'm not a linguist. It was just a pattern I found interesting, because the term itself is so particular. Any and all corrections are more than welcome.

I'm also delighted by the discussion this has sparked! 💖

[–] FlyingSquid 14 points 6 months ago (2 children)

That reminds me of the word 'Frank,' which was used by the Byzantines to essentially mean 'all those non-Roman barbarians to the west of us' and which, after the Crusades, spread as a word across Asia meaning 'Europeans.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farang

[–] dojan 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Thank you for sharing! I had not heard of this before. I particularly enjoyed this bit

Farang khi nok (Thai: ฝรั่งขี้นก, lit. 'bird-droppings Farang'), also used in Lao, is slang commonly used as an insult to a person of white race, equivalent to white trash, as khi means feces and nok means bird, referring to the white color of bird-droppings

That's so colourful. I love it.

It also made me think of the fictional race in Star Trek, the Ferengi. At least according to Wikipedia that is precisely the origin of their name!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Frankly frankly reminds me of those folks from the north of Gaul

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Japanese fleama though appears to be a loan word and not a calque like the rest.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Now this guy is paying attention!

[–] trashgirlfriend 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Wouldn't it be both? Assuming 蚤の市 and フリーマーケット have the same meaning.

[–] dojan 2 points 6 months ago

蚤の市

Yep! nomi no ichi. Nomi (蚤) means flea, and ichi (市) means market, no (の) is a possessive particle making it "flea's market" or "market of flea"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I assume that 蚤の市 is a loan word and フリーマーケット a calque. But I don't speak any Japanese.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

No, it's the other way around. 蚤 means flea and 市 means market. フリーマーケット sounds like flea market.

[–] dojan 1 points 6 months ago

This is true, I don't know which word came first. I'd wager a guess that 蚤の市 predates フリーマーケット, but it's really just a stab in the dark on the basis that English loanwords feel more modern, and it feels unlikely that a calque would be created after a loanword has been widely adopted.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Pretty much anything in katakana in Japan is loanwords.

Very interesting about flew markets though, Norway is the same as Sweden here.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Add Finnish to the list, "kirpputori" = flea market.

[–] dojan 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Is tori ever used like plaza, like the Swedish word "torg?" The way I read tori in my head makes it sound almost homophonous with torg, hence why I ask.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

A number of Slavic, Baltic, Norse, (and also Finnic languages like Finnish and Estonian) use some form of this word for market. It originated in Proto-slavic and passed through Old Norse into descendant languages.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%82%D1%8A%D1%80%D0%B3%D1%8A#Old_East_Slavic

The most interesting thing is that the root appears to have borrowed into Finnish twice, once probably from Slavic (as turku) and once from Old Norse (as tori).

[–] cor315 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

thieves market

I've definitely been to a few flea markets where I thought all this stuff was stolen.

[–] dojan 1 points 6 months ago

Aha! See, my first thought was that maybe it had something to do with pickpockets being present!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (3 children)

"Hippopotamus" is another one. It derives from the Greek words hippos (horse) and potamos (river) and this concept of river horse is present in many different languages:

  • German: Flusspferd (lit. river horse)
  • Dutch: Rivierpaard (lit. river horse)
  • Finnish: Virtahepo (lit. stream horse)
  • Danish: Flodhest (lit. flood horse)
  • Chinese: 河马 (lit. river horse)
  • Arabic: فرس النهر (lit. river horse)
  • French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese use variations of hippopotamus.

Tiny variations exist as well:

  • Hungarian: Víziló (lit. water horse)
  • Afrikaans: Seekoei (lit. sea cow)
[–] Smallwater 2 points 6 months ago

Actually, the Dutch translation is "Nijlpaard", not "rivierpaard".

But, it uses the Dutch name for the Nile river, "Nijl". So it's lit. "Nilehorse" - which is technically the same as "river horse", just more geographically specific.

[–] dojan 1 points 6 months ago

Aye! Flodhäst in Swedish, and カバ (河馬, 河 river, 馬 horse) in Japanese.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Unimportant extra: it's not a calque in British English, because we don't use it (to the best of my knowledge). Like a potluck, we have the concept but not a word for it, and we don't use the American phrases either

We have a car boot sale, but that's literal

There's probably regional exceptions

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago
[–] wide_eyed_stupid 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

~~Vlooienmarkt in Dutch, also literally flea market.~~

Edit: Nvm, I'm blind, I see you already mentioned it.

[–] kemsat 1 points 6 months ago

It’s almost like most of those languages you mentioned, had their speakers go everywhere around the world, approximately 500 years ago, and they colonized most of the world, causing many places around the world to use similar idioms…