# Do all languages have a way of expressing "(sic)"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-a-way-of-expressing-sic/732730>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 27, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-a-way-of-expressing-sic/732730 "2015-09-27T18:01:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-a-way-of-expressing-sic/732730/1 "2015-09-27T18:01:23Z")

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Do all languages have a way of expressing "(sic)"_sic erat scriptum_?

I imagine Latin based languages use it, but what about Hundi, Thai, Korean, etc.?

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-a-way-of-expressing-sic/732730/2 "2015-09-27T19:15:50Z")

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Is your assumption that all “Latin based languages” will use sic as the main way to express “literally”? Spanish does have that expression, but it’s rarely seen outside of legal documents; other expressions such as _tal cual_ (“just like that”) or _del original_ (“from the original text”) are much more common and unrelated to sic. There are some which are specialized by context, such as _en español en el original_ (“in Spanish in the original text”) to indicate that a fragment of a translated text was originally in Spanish.

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**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-languages-have-a-way-of-expressing-sic/732730/3 "2015-09-27T19:37:56Z")

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If you [go to the Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic), and click the various languages on the left, it will let you know what the local phrases are. Most The languages are in a different place (bottom?) if you’re viewing the mobile site. It appears to be the same in most European languages, except that Polish adds an emphatic exclamation mark. Some languages, like Japanese, use a different phrase (“mama” in this case, although the page notes the word “sic” as well.

Unfortunately there are no pages in the languages noted in the OP. There are pages for Arabic, and two varieties of Chinese.