# "Bitch" in other languages **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 11, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074 "2009-03-11T14:06:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/21 "2009-03-11T15:44:34Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Well, it’s _verboten_ for one thing. Yup, I slipped there! :o 🙂 > [@](#): > > ETA: Re-reading your post, it appears we just have different views on how offensive bitch is. If I called the wifey a bitch I’d definitely get an “OMG I can’t believe you said that” response. Probably involving a fist. > [@twickster](#): > > “Bitch,” OTOH, though rude as hell, isn’t a word I think twice about using in front of just about anyone other than an elderly aunt or a boss, esp. in reference to a third person. Admittedly calling someone that to her face can definitely be fightin’ words – but would your wife freak out completely if you described some incredibly obnoxious woman who made your life a living hell as a bitch? I was thinking along the same lines as \*\*Twix \*\*here – I guess the word bitch may be offensive to differing degrees to different people. This would probably be true in Hebrew as well, though, so I still maintain it’s a pretty good “straight” translation 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/22 "2009-03-11T15:47:40Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Urdu its similar to Hindi; “Cutia”. In Salman Rushdies Midnight Children, the unit our hero is a member of the Canine Unit Tracking Intelligence Agents or CUTIA. > > **Annamika** , I think “sister-fucker” is “Bahan Chod”. “Saali” means sister in law. > > But most S Asians would use “Bitch” anyway That’s another phrase - I don’t use bahan chod much where I come from. And of course I meant “brother fucker” - sister fucker is saala. bahan chod is more…village, in my circle, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/23 "2009-03-11T15:55:46Z")
> [@Noone\_Special](#): > > In Hebrew, either “_Klafteh_” or “_Kalba_” – While “Kalba” simply means “female dog” in Hebrew, I’m pretty sure “kalfteh” isn’t really Yiddish like it sounds, but is rather a case of taking the Hebrew word and retro-fitting it into Yiddush form, so it sounds like a **real** insult! 😃 > > Most likely an emulations of the concept of “bitch” from English. I’d actually say that while \*Kalba \*may be the most direct translation of “bitch”, it’s pretty much a neologism, and not the most commonly used invective. I’d put \*Zona \*(“whore”), \*Pustema \*(an Arabic word meaning “dumb bitch”) or \*Behemah \*(“beast”, meaning “ugly bitch”, either looks- or personality-wise) ahead of it in popularity. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/24 "2009-03-11T15:58:39Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > You can also [look here on wiktionary](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bitch) and check out the female canine and spiteful woman categories and see where words overlap. Great link – thanks! It looks like in addition to Greek, Hebrew, Polish, and Russian, as noted, the word is the same in: Armenian Bulgarian French Latvian Lithuanian Norwegian Polish Romanian Slovak ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/25 "2009-03-11T16:11:57Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I’d actually say that while \*Kalba \*may be the most direct translation of “bitch”, it’s pretty much a neologism, and not the most commonly used invective. I’d put \*Zona \*(“whore”), \*Pustema \*(an Arabic word meaning “dumb bitch”) or \*Behemah \*(“beast”, meaning “ugly bitch”, either looks- or personality-wise) ahead of it in popularity. Maybe “_behema_” (although I haven’t heard it in, like, forever) – “_Zona_” and “_Pustema_” really don’t mean quite what “bitch” does in the sense of a **nasty** , snappish woman, IMO… both are closer IMO to what an English speaker means by “cunt” (and both are, in my mind, equally inappropriate in most conversation, whereas “bitch”/“klafteh” are nowhere near as offensive.) “_Klafteh_,” especially, has that same _je ne sais quoi_ to my ears as “bitch,” that can make it sound almost… \*\*appreciative \*\*of the quality, at times. The other terms are pure negative vitriol. ---
**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:** [March 11, 2009, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/26 "2009-03-11T16:12:15Z")
Finnish, too, but, oddly, Hungarian is left out. edit: that was in reply to **twickster**. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/27 "2009-03-11T16:23:17Z")
> [@Noone\_Special](#): > > Maybe “_behema_” (although I haven’t heard it in, like, forever) – “_Zona_” and “_Pustema_” really don’t mean quite what “bitch” does in the sense of a **nasty** , snappish woman, IMO… both are closer IMO to what an English speaker means by “cunt” (and both are, in my mind, equally inappropriate in most conversation, whereas “bitch”/“klafteh” are nowhere near as offensive.) > > “_Klafteh_,” especially, has that same _je ne sais quoi_ to my ears as “bitch,” that can make it sound almost… \*\*appreciative \*\*of the quality, at times. The other terms are pure negative vitriol. I think it’s the difference between what a word means, and how it’s _used_. I mean, fill in the blank: _“Tistemi ta’peh, ya \_\_\_\_\_\_\_.”_ \* Is \*Kalba \*the best word here, or _Zona_? \*“Shut the fuck up, \_\_\_\_\_\_.” ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/28 "2009-03-11T16:28:06Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Finnish, too, but, oddly, Hungarian is left out. > > edit: that was in reply to **twickster**. Looking at the language tree on the inside back cover of my (almost 40-year-old, so who knows if scholars have rearranged these) American Heritage dictionary, Lithuanian and Latvian are both Baltic languages; Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, and Slovak are Slavic, and they’re all considered part of the Balto-Slavic family. My vague recollection is that Hungarian is in there also, but I’m not seeing it anywhere in this chart. And what’s Armenian? ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/29 "2009-03-11T16:28:48Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > The word for female dog? Is it used for a nasty woman? It is the word for a female dog and also an insult for women, although more insulting. You can also direct at men the same way you could call a guy a little bitch (for more on this usage, see the Wire). ---
**Author:** ![WormTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbe5ce/32.png) [@WormTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WormTheRed)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/30 "2009-03-11T16:32:47Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Looking at the language tree on the inside back cover of my (almost 40-year-old, so who knows if scholars have rearranged these) American Heritage dictionary, Lithuanian and Latvian are both Baltic languages; Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, and Slovak are Slavic, and they’re all considered part of the Balto-Slavic family. My vague recollection is that Hungarian is in there also, but I’m not seeing it anywhere in this chart. And what’s Armenian? Hungarian is related to Finnish and Estonian, but I can’t remember what the family is called… U-something or other. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/31 "2009-03-11T16:34:23Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I think it’s the difference between what a word means, and how it’s _used_. I mean, fill in the blank: > > _“Tistemi ta’peh, ya \_\_\_\_\_\_\_.”_ \* > > Is \*Kalba \*the best word here, or _Zona_? > > \*“Shut the fuck up, \_\_\_\_\_\_.” Hmmm… this is definitely a place where “_kalba_” would work, but “_klafteh_” would not. \*Klafteh \*just isn’t angry or mean enough… So I take it back that they are the same. And FTR, I’d probably fo with “_A’habla_” (moron? But a lot more slangy) here 🙂 And I would probably not call a woman “zona” to her face, no matter how annoyed I was with her. Of all the terms we’ve mentioned, I definitely think “_zona_” (and only it) crosses the line from “bitch” territory to “cunt” territory. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Batman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@The\_Batman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Batman)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/32 "2009-03-11T16:48:13Z")
In Spanish _perra_ literally means ‘bitch’ and is used similarly but _puta_ ‘whore’ is more commonly used. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/33 "2009-03-11T17:00:32Z")
> [@WormTheRed](#): > > Hungarian is related to Finnish and Estonian, but I can’t remember what the family is called… U-something or other. Uralic. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/34 "2009-03-11T17:09:43Z")
> [@WormTheRed](#): > > Hungarian is related to Finnish and Estonian, but I can’t remember what the family is called… U-something or other. **Really** beat me too it, because I had to figure out where my copy of _The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_ was. It’s the Uralic family, and it has three branches. The two main ones are Finnic (Finnish and Estonian, plus Lapp) and Ugric (mostly Hungarian, plus a couple of dying languages with a few thousand speakers). The third is Samoyedic, a bunch of (again, dying) languages spoken by various groups in Siberia. Armenian is its own branch of Indo-European. ---
**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:** [March 11, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/35 "2009-03-11T17:20:48Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > **Really** beat me too it, because I had to figure out where my copy of _The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_ was. > > It’s the Uralic family, and it has three branches. The two main ones are Finnic (Finnish and Estonian, plus Lapp) and Ugric (mostly Hungarian, plus a couple of dying languages with a few thousand speakers). The third is Samoyedic, a bunch of (again, dying) languages spoken by various groups in Siberia. Yeah, Hungarian is part of the Uralic/Ugric/Finno-Ugric languages (depending on what part of the tree you want to refer to.) It is not an Indo-European language, which makes it a bit of an oddity given its geography. Even within the language family, say between Finnish and Hungarian, there is hardly any vocabulary overlap, although the grammars and general structure of the langauges are similar. (I would even say the way they sound is similar. Finnish to me sounds like someone took Hungarian phonemes and scrambled them.) It’s a pretty fascinating group of languages: There’s only about 25 million speakers of the Uralic languages, and they don’t seem to be related to any of the other major language families. Hungarian, for example, will have some Slavic, Germanic, Turkish, etc., cognates, but they’re relatively few and far between. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/36 "2009-03-11T17:25:55Z")
German: the literal translation of bitch is “Hündin” - a female dog, but that has very little offensive potential. \* - In Bavarian, you can say “A Hund is er scho!” about somebody (He’s a real dog, that one) for somebody who’s acting like a bastard/thief/deceiver in a tone of grudging admiration, and it’s not an insult. At my mostly male high school (junior high class age), we usually called each other “Hurensöhne” = Son of whore (=SOB?) and “Wichser” = masturbator\* \*A comedy movie that spoofed the german-made Edgar-Wallace movies of the 50s and 60s that came out recently was called “Der Wixxer” which is pronounced the same. So not offensive enough to use in a movie title in a satiric way. But the typical insult specifically for a woman? Hmmm… maybe “Hure” or “Nutte” which mean whore/prostitute. But I wouldn’t think of those first, maybe because people don’t think there’s so much wrong with fucking around. I’d use a general insult like “Arschloch” = asshole for somebody who’s a real one. Oh, and there’s “Du Sau!” = you female pig (sow) that’s a good insult for men and women, either because somebody’s just made a mess so they are literally pigs, or because you hate their face. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/37 "2009-03-11T17:30:15Z")
In Dutch, _teef_ means both female dog and disagreeable woman. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/38 "2009-03-11T17:32:15Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yeah, Hungarian is part of the Uralic/Ugric/Finno-Ugric languages (depending on what part of the tree you want to refer to.) It is not an Indo-European language, which makes it a bit of an oddity given its geography. Interesting! (Though it does explain why it wasn’t on the Cliff’s Notes version of the chart I was looking at, which was Indo-European only.) Are there any theories about where the family came from, or why there would be a connection between Finnish, Hungarian, and a bunch of languages spoken in Siberia? (It’s the Hungarian that seems odd here – the others seem more northern/nomadic. That could just be my ignorance though – I don’t know diddly about Hungary, its language, history, or culture.) ---
**Author:** ![WormTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbe5ce/32.png) [@WormTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WormTheRed)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/39 "2009-03-11T17:37:39Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Interesting! (Though it does explain why it wasn’t on the Cliff’s Notes version of the chart I was looking at, which was Indo-European only.) > > Are there any theories about where the family came from, or why there would be a connection between Finnish, Hungarian, and a bunch of languages spoken in Siberia? (It’s the Hungarian that seems odd here – the others seem more northern/nomadic. That could just be my ignorance though – I don’t know diddly about Hungary, its language, history, or culture.) I’m not prepared to defend this at all, but I recall reading somewhere that the Huns (as in Attilla the Hun) came as nomads from pastures up towards Russia. They then settled in modern day Hungary and voila - there’s the connection to the other languages. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074/40 "2009-03-11T17:45:58Z")
Thus "Hun"gary? (Does it count as a hijack when you’re the OP? My apologies about the detour into historical linguistics to those who are interested in the question I originally posed. :D) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitch-in-other-languages/489074.md?page=3)