Well, actually, another correction. Chinese don’t use an exact equivalent of “no” in the English sense.
“mei you” literally is “not have” as in “no money.” The Cantonese “mo” is equivalent to “mei you” (but a different character than "mei you
"bu"is used to form a negative and is somewhat equivalent to “no” as in “no smoking”. In Cantonese this is pronounced more of a “um” (I don’t know the standard romanization, but same character as the Mandarin “bu”.)
“bu shi” is negative form of the verb “to be” so more like “is not” as in “not a good plan.” “Vazi” is Shanghaiese direct translation of “bu shi”
Now, if you want get beyond this basic Cantonese and Shanghaiese, I’ll have to ask my Cantonese speaking Shanghaiese wife with a degree from Japan’s Waseda University. She puts me to shame in the language department as no doubt China bambina will by about her second birthday.
In Norwegian, the exclamation is AU! It can be repeated as necessary: AU-AU-AU-AU-AUUUUUUU!!! Clearly there’s some sort of Germanic thing at work here.
If, however, the accident in question is an embarrassing and not terribly painful one, Ola/Kari might also say “Uff, da.” For the first twenty years of my life I thought that was just a joke my dad’s Wisconsin relatives liked to tell about Minnesotans. And then my husband said it. And then my son said it. And then I said it. :eek:
Germans also say “Autsch,” which sounds a lot like “ouch.” “Auaaaaaaaa” and “Auiiiiiii” get used a lot, too. Not to mention the expletives. Oddly enough, the Germans around me use expletives to a much lesser degree than I do. A smashed thumb leads me to jump around the room, holding said thumb and cursing the hammer, the nail, the manufacturers of both hammer and nail, the freaking idiot who decided that we needed a nail driven in the wall, the turkey who built the wall of such hard materials, etc, etc, followed by sticking the smashed digit in my mouth and licking off the blood. The Germans just smash the thumb, holler “AUUUUU!,” stick the mashed digit in the mouth, and be done with it.
Cultural differences - they keep life interesting.
In French (Quebec French, at least) it is often pronounced “a-yoy”. I’m not sure how it would be spelt, because I don’t think I ever had to write it before, and I don’t remember seeing it spelt.
[hijack}
I hit my funny bone yesterday, and said “Ow! I just hit my funny bone!”
My boyfriend, who is francophone, asks me what the hell I’m talking about, and so I tell him I hit my elbow, and it was tingling - you know, hitting your funny bone? He starts laughing at me, and I ask him whats so funny? He’s laughing cuz it’s not a bone, its a nerve, and he thinks its a stupid expression.
So I say “What do you say when you hit your funny bone?” (meaning, of course, what do you call it?).
[continues hijack] Ja boet - born and raised in Cape Town, living and working in London, UK at the moment, although always intending to head back to African Skies
[/continues hijack]
Actually, “iie” doesn’t really mean “no” in the sense that “no” means “no.” “Iie” is the no at the beginning of a negative statement, as in “no, I’m not going.” But the word on its own very rarely means “no” in the strong, stand-alone negatory sense.
The word you want is “iya,” often shortened to “ya,” which has (I guess) a much more similar wavelength to “no.” Not that I am a big supporter of the theory or anything, but it does seem to work in this case…
Somethimes when something hurts they shorten “itai” to “itah!” or even “atah!” usually followed by a hissing intake of breath. Like: “atah!ssssssssssss…”
You think it’s funny, wait till it becomes a habit. I say this when I go home to the States now and everyone looks at me like I’m from another planet. Or Japan. Same thing, really…
