# Albanian Insults / Curse Words (translation help, please!) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 19, 2007, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719 "2007-09-19T06:18:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/1 "2007-09-19T06:18:16Z")
I have an Albanian coworker who is always muttering insults under her breath. I asked her a couple, and she translated them for me – but some, she won’t translate. I’m curious to know what they mean and how to spell them. The ones I know are _budalla / budallaçkë_ which is “fool” and _gomar / gomarica_, which is “jackass”. The ones I don’t know sound like: [ol][li]CHEEN - ga (or guh)[/li][li]ro - SPEE - ya[/li][li]COR - va (or vuh)[/li][li]po - TAAHN - ka (or kuh)[/li][li]har - JESH - ka (kuh)[/li][/ol] I do _not_ know how to spell these in Albanian, and I do not know what they mean. If you do, please help! And if you know, can I have both the feminine and masculine versions? Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/2 "2007-09-19T16:24:00Z")
[QUOTE=Bambi Hassenpfeffer] The ones I don’t know sound like: [li]po - TAAHN - ka (or kuh)[/li][/QUOTE] I don’t know a single word of Albanian, but if this word is somehow related to the romance languages, it could mean ‘whore’ (e.g. in French, it’s ‘putain’, in Spanish and Filipino, it’s ‘puta’, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/3 "2007-09-19T16:32:38Z")
I’m willing to bet that it is. Albanian is an isolate, but I’m sure it’s borrowed words from nearby languages. I speak Spanish and knew about _puta_, but I didn’t know the French. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/4 "2007-09-19T19:35:58Z")
[QUOTE=Bambi Hassenpfeffer] I’m willing to bet that it is. Albanian is an isolate, but I’m sure it’s borrowed words from nearby languages. I speak Spanish and knew about _puta_, but I didn’t know the French. [/QUOTE] Albanian is \*not \* an isolate, it’s a branch of the Indo-European family. I have some dictionaries at home I can check out tomorrow if no one has solved the quandaries by then. ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/5 "2007-09-19T19:48:46Z")
[QUOTE=Dr. Drake] Albanian is \*not \* an isolate, it’s a branch of the Indo-European family. I have some dictionaries at home I can check out tomorrow if no one has solved the quandaries by then. [/QUOTE] I’m sorry – I misspoke. I meant that it is relatively isolated and largely unrelated to other languages spoken today. It is its own branch of the Indo-European family and is very distinct from other languages in the family. ---
**Author:** ![Lazlo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lazlo/32/9678_2.png) [@Lazlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazlo)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/6 "2007-09-19T19:56:34Z")
[QUOTE=Bambi Hassenpfeffer] CHEEN - ga (or guh) [/QUOTE] This one sounds like “fuck” in spanish. At least northern NM spanish. eg: chinga tu madre ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/7 "2007-09-19T21:12:05Z")
[QUOTE=Lazlo] This one sounds like “fuck” in spanish. At least northern NM spanish. eg: chinga tu madre [/QUOTE] It really, really does. In fact, the first time she said it, our Ecuadorian coworker shot her this look that I still find really funny (a combination of “what did she say?!” mixed with “I didn’t know she spoke Spanish!”). It’s so close to a conjugation _chingar_ that I’ve told her it’s one she can’t say, because we don’t want our customers to hear that. My store’s nickname is The United Nations. We have people from the Philippines, Albania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Ecuador, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, India, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Thailand, and England. It gets difficult tracking all of the various ways that people can insult each other. However, most of them are not the _only_ person in the store who speaks that language, so I can usually get someone else to translate. The Albanian in question poses a special problem, because the other two Albanians don’t have the English needed to translate the words that she says. It’s kind of frustrating. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/8 "2007-09-19T22:49:12Z")
[QUOTE=Windwalker] I don’t know a single word of Albanian, but if this word is somehow related to the romance languages, it could mean ‘whore’ (e.g. in French, it’s ‘putain’, in Spanish and Filipino, it’s ‘puta’, etc.). [/QUOTE] Filipino is not a Romance language, it just has a lot of Spanish vocabulary from the Spanish colonial days. Also, Filipino didn’t exist back then; it’s a [late 20th century invention](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_language), largely based on Tagalog. ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/9 "2007-09-20T01:08:23Z")
[QUOTE=sturmhauke] Filipino is not a Romance language, it just has a lot of Spanish vocabulary from the Spanish colonial days. Also, Filipino didn’t exist back then; it’s a [late 20th century invention](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_language), largely based on Tagalog. [/QUOTE] Yeah, didn’t mean to say that it was a Romance language, I just felt like throwing it in there since I happened to know that it took puta from Spanish. It’s neat having language links between places half the world apart (even if it is based on imperialist history). ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/10 "2007-09-20T02:21:51Z")
[QUOTE=Bambi Hassenpfeffer] I’m sorry – I misspoke. I meant that it is relatively isolated and largely unrelated to other languages spoken today. It is its own branch of the Indo-European family and is very distinct from other languages in the family. [/QUOTE] True, but keep in mind it is heavily overlaid with borrowings from Latin, Greek, Turkish, and god only knows what else. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2007, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/11 "2007-09-20T16:30:43Z")
1. CHEEN - ga (or guh) 2. ro - SPEE - ya 3. COR - va (or vuh) 4. po - TAAHN - ka (or kuh) 5. har - JESH - ka (kuh) My dictionaries weren’t as helpful as I’d have liked. For #1, I will tentatively suggest _qynq_, “pipe,” if you’re sure you’re hearing an [n]. If not, _qyqe_, literally “cuckoo,” can also mean “unfortunate.” [q] is pronounced a little like [t] in _mature_, rather than [ch] in _church_ No clue about #2–#4 (though I suspect #4 is really a Slavic swear for ‘little whore’ borrowed in). #5 is from the root _harxh–_. _Harxhe_ are expenses, and _harxhój_ is ‘I spend, disburse, consume.’ At least one person online posted an Albanian message with the word _harxheshkë_, which is how I think you’d spell it, but I have no idea what it means. ---
**Author:** ![medstar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f07891/32.png) [@medstar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/medstar)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/12 "2007-09-21T01:16:22Z")
“May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits!” Is that it? ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/13 "2007-09-21T01:49:11Z")
Got spellings for some of them: Putanka: clearly related to puta and putain. Mystery solved. However, these two remain mysteries: çinga and ruspia. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/14 "2007-09-21T01:54:09Z")
[QUOTE=Dr. Drake] [q] is pronounced a little like [t] in _mature_, rather than [ch] in _church_ [/QUOTE] … which are both pronounced the same way. I _love_ phonetics threads. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/15 "2007-09-21T02:04:43Z")
Çinga, spelled exactly this way, also seems to be an Albanian surname, so it can’t be that bad, though I’m guessing the clan avoids travel in Spanish-speaking countries. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/16 "2007-09-21T04:07:40Z")
[QUOTE=Bambi Hassenpfeffer] COR - va (or vuh) [/QUOTE] I’m guessing that this one means “whore”. _Kurva_ (and alternate spellings) means “whore” in many Slavic languages, and also in Hungarian, which I presume borrowed it. It’s not so great a stretch to think that Albanian might have borrowed it as well. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/17 "2007-09-21T04:14:10Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] > [@Dr. Drake](#): > > [q] is pronounced a little like [t] in mature, rather than [ch] in church … which are both pronounced the same way. I _love_ phonetics threads. [/QUOTE] Depends on your dialect. I suspect that **Dr. Drake** pronounces the \ in “mature” with some palatalization—i.e., [tʲ]. However, I suspect that Albanian \ is closer in pronunciation to the Hungarian \; namely [c] (a voiceless palatal plosive). ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/18 "2007-09-21T19:54:30Z")
[QUOTE=psychonaut] Depends on your dialect. I suspect that **Dr. Drake** pronounces the \ in “mature” with some palatalization—i.e., [tʲ]. However, I suspect that Albanian \ is closer in pronunciation to the Hungarian \; namely [c] (a voiceless palatal plosive). [/QUOTE] Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/19 "2007-09-21T20:00:38Z")
[QUOTE=psychonaut] I’m guessing that this one means “whore”. _Kurva_ (and alternate spellings) means “whore” in many Slavic languages, and also in Hungarian, which I presume borrowed it. It’s not so great a stretch to think that Albanian might have borrowed it as well. [/QUOTE] Beat me to it, and I’d bet the house it’s a cognate. Edit: I should also add that _kurva_ is often used as a general intensifier, much like the way “fucking” would be used in English. _kurva jó_ - (Hungarian) lit. “whore good” = “fucking good” _ale kurwa dobre!_ - (Polish), lit. “but whore good” = “how fucking good!” ---
**Author:** ![filmyak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@filmyak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmyak)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719/20 "2007-09-21T20:38:36Z")
My sister-in-law is a language expert in the peace corps, currently stationed in… you guessed it… Albania. I’ll forward this to her, see what she can pry out of the locals. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albanian-insults-curse-words-translation-help-please/419719.md?page=2)