# Do other languages use rhyming reduplication? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 30, 2025, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410 "2025-10-30T03:22:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/21 "2025-10-30T18:50:35Z")
“Colorín Colorado” is a Spanish phrase used at the end of a story, similar to “and they lived happily ever after” or “that’s the end of the story” – AI ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/22 "2025-10-30T18:57:02Z")
I don’t speak Spanish, but my grandma used to say something like “da cabo a rabo” or some such, which I took to mean “soup to nuts” or similar. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/23 "2025-10-30T18:59:20Z")
That is right, good example! That makes at least two. Do I understand correctly, that you came to this answer with the help of AI? May I ask what your prompt was? Another way to end the story, usually a fairy tale, is _“y fueron felices y comieron perdices”_, that is: and they were happy and ate partridges. I don’t know whether that counts, it just rhymes, but is not strictly speaking a reduplication, is it? Ah, and BTW: your example when told to the end reads: _“y colorín colorado, este cuento se ha acabado”_, that is: colorín colorado, this fairy tale thus ends. ETA: > [@Cervaise](#): > > “da cabo a rabo” Also correct, but it is _d **e** cabo a rabo_ and means from start to finish or from end to end. That makes three. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/24 "2025-10-30T19:01:38Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > “da cabo a rabo” Reminds me of Abracadabra, which is such a word extant in many languages, but I don’t know the origin. ETA: similarly, also hocus pocus. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/25 "2025-10-30T19:07:36Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > ETA: similarly, also hocus pocus. The etymology for _hocus pocus_ that I have heard is that it derives from _hoc est corpus meum_ (“this is my body”), spoken during the transubstantiation part of a Catholic mass. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/26 "2025-10-30T19:08:21Z")
That sounds reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/27 "2025-10-30T19:11:33Z")
I wrote about both in German many years ago, it is still in the [internet](https://pardel-lux.com/ueberflug-versuch-einer-beschreibung/civ-keine-alternative/index.html)! See footnote iii. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/28 "2025-10-30T19:29:24Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > “soup to nuts” I should have known, the Master explains it best: > **[What’s the origin of the expression, “from soup to nuts”?](https://www.straightdope.com/21342715/what-s-the-origin-of-the-expression-from-soup-to-nuts)** > > A STAFF REPORT FROM THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/29 "2025-10-30T19:55:10Z")
In danish there’s “skuddermudder”, for when some task or process fails from a multitude of small causes. A danish online dictionary says it’s from german “Schutt und Moder”, meaning “Debris and decay”. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/30 "2025-10-30T20:23:02Z")
That would mean that the German Kuddelmuddel, already mentioned in post #2, is a corruption of the Danish skuddermudder, which would in turn be a corruption of the German Schutt und Moder! Now that I find funny. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/31 "2025-10-30T20:53:38Z")
In the 1990s and 2000s, Süddeutsche Zeitung, a major German newspaper, used to run a sophisticated riddle every summer. In one of its questions, it asked what the longest recognised (by dictionaries) “Doppelmoppel” in the German language was, by which they meant a word whose two halves were identical. The obvious words of this sort that everybody would think of are all rather short terms used predominantly by children such as “Mau-Mau” or “tatütatü“; the correct answer was “Kompetenzkompetenz“, a legal term of art (denoting the power to decide who has the power to decide a given issue). ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/32 "2025-10-30T21:12:15Z")
Absolutely. For example, in Serbian, a woman’s trinkets are also colloquially called “Điđa miđe” (Dyidya-meedye). “Nađiđati se” means to deck yourself out in your jewelry. In Czech, a woman’s trinkets are also colloquially referred to by a like expression using rhyming reduplication: “Cetky tretky” (tsetky-tretky). ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/33 "2025-10-30T21:37:30Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > “Kompetenzkompetenz“ That is a magnificent solution to that riddle, and I am glad that I did not read the Süddeutsche back then, because I could have bitten myself in the arse (to use the appropiate German expression 😉 ) for not coming up with it – which I would not have managed, I am afraid. But this is German legal lingo based on the way German words are combined, combined in turn with the art of being succint that German jurists like. The good ones, at least. I don’t think it is rhyming reduplication in the strict sense the OP means. Just a subtle nitpick, I can’t avoid it. Still beautiful, thank you very much for sharing. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2025, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/34 "2025-10-31T00:14:10Z")
The Hawaiian state fish is humumumunukunukuapua’a. Apparently the Hawaiian language is full of reduplicative phrases. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2025, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/35 "2025-10-31T00:22:14Z")
That’s true but I don’t think words whose parts are exactly repeated are what the OP is looking for. That’s not what I would consider “rhyming”. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2025, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/36 "2025-10-31T00:45:20Z")
How about hoity-toity and hottie-patootie? And here’s a passage from Agatha Christie’s _The Man in the Brown Suit_. Anne Beddingfield, an Englishwoman visiting the tropics, laments the lack of reduplication in English: I was very pleased to meet a pawpaw. I had always vaguely associated it with a _hula-hula,_ which, I believe, though I may be wrong, is a kind of straw skirt that Hawaiian girls dance in. No, I think I am wrong—that is a _lava-lava._ At any rate, all these things are very cheering after England. I can’t help thinking that it would brighten our cold Island life if one could have a breakfast of _bacon-bacon,_ and then go out clad in a _jumper-jumper_ to pay the bills. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/37 "2025-10-31T01:13:10Z")
From the wiki page for the Anglo-Indian dictionary _Hobson-Jobson:_ > The scholar Traci Nagle, however, also finds a note of condescension in the choice. [Rhyming reduplication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming_reduplication "Rhyming reduplication") (as in “Hobson-Jobson” or “puli kili”) is highly productive in South Asian languages, yielding [echo words](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_word "Echo word"). In English, however, rhyming reduplication is generally either juvenile (as in [Humpty Dumpty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty "Humpty Dumpty") or [hokey-pokey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokey-pokey "Hokey-pokey")) or [pejorative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pejorative "Pejorative") (as in [namby-pamby](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namby_Pamby "Namby Pamby") or [mumbo-jumbo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbo_jumbo_(phrase) "Mumbo jumbo (phrase)")); further, Hobson and Jobson were [stock characters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_character "Stock character") in Victorian times, used to indicate a pair of yokels, clowns, or idiots.[[8]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson-Jobson#cite_note-8)[[9]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson-Jobson#cite_note-zimmer-9) The title thus produced negative associations – being at best self-deprecatory on the part of the authors, suggesting themselves a pair of idiots – and reviewers reacted negatively to the title, generally praising the book but finding the title inappropriate. > **[Hobson-Jobson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson-Jobson)** > > Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive is a historical dictionary of Anglo-Indian words and terms from Indian languages which came into use during British rule in India. > It was written by Sir Henry Yule and Arthur Coke Burnell and first published in 1886. Burnell died before the work was finished, and most of it was completed by Yule, who acknowledged Burnell's detailed contributions. A ... ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2025, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/38 "2025-10-31T01:27:41Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Rhyming reduplication is phrases like artsy fartsy, boogie woogie, easy peasy, hanky panky, hoity toity, hurley burley, or okey dokey. Very weird - did this topic come up for you in a Facebook post and pique your interest, causing you to post? Because I’ve looked at this thread, but haven’t posted in it nor googled the subject or typed in the letters or anything, and just now “Reduplication, schmaduplication…” - “rhyming reduplication” showed up in my Facebook feed under a Merriam-Webster post (which I’m not a follower of). Usually these things only show up if I’ve had some kind of interaction - like googling it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2025, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/39 "2025-10-31T02:16:57Z")
Yes, a Merriam Webster post on the subject was in my Facebook feed. Presumably the same one you saw. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2025, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410/40 "2025-10-31T02:47:32Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Presumably the same one you saw. Good! I was afraid the computer was reading over my shoulder. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-use-rhyming-reduplication/1024410.md?page=3)