In English, when we are referring to words (usually a text) we don’t understand, we call it Greek (as in "it’s Greek to me). In Hebrew, we call it Chinese. I have heard that the French actually call it Hebrew. What do they do in other languages? Do the Greeks say “It’s French to me”? Do the Chinese say “This is all English”?
Being Greek Australian I thought I should reply to this, and I’m pretty sure that we don’t actually refer to another language when we don’t understand something… Although I could be mistaken.
It’s from Julius Caesar. My guess is that the quote translates correctly through most languages. Casca would be proud.
My Spanish is pretty bad, but I remember, “Es chino por mi.”–“It’s Chinese to me.”
Actually in French we also say “it’s Chinese for me”.
Computer Scientist Arnold Rosenberg wrote a humorous paper on this very topic about 1980 entitled “The Hardest Natural Language”. He had collected quite a few of these “sounds like Spanish villages to me” type sayings to infer which language was thought of as the “hardest” in some sense. The overall winner was Chinese, but the Chinese themselves say “It’s heavenly script to me.” I.e., the (written) language of heaven.
The paper was published as an IBM Watson Tech Report, it might have also appeared in SIGACT News. I have a copy buried in a box somewhere. (But a google search turned up nada.)
Why would a Computer Scientist, even as a joke, be interested in difficulty of languages? It all comes from important Computational Complexity issues relating to Really Big Questions about NP-Completeness and the like, and well, umm… (I knew I shouldn’t try to explain computer geek humor.)
So what language do hoi Hellenikoi themselves call something they don’t understand?
<hijack>
That would be comparable to asking what they call a turkey in Turkey. The answer is hindi.
</hijack>
This question comes up frequently in Greece. The Greeks do in fact say “It’s Chinese to me.”
The expression comes from something in Roman times, although I don’t have the site right now. Similarly, Augustus used to say “On the Greek Kalends” when he meant something to the effect of “When Hell freezes over”, as the Greeks had no Kalends per se.
World Wide Words is Mr. Quinions take on the phrase. I know it doesn’t answer the OP but info is still valuable.
I meant that the expression “It’s Greek to me” comes from a Latin aphorism.
Nowadays, the Greeks commonly say “It’s Chinese to me.” but in ancient times I have no idea what --if anything-- they said.
The site Sententiae Latinae says: “Graeca sunt, non leguntur.” and translates it as “It is Greek, you don’t read that.” It lists (N/A) as the quoted source. Most sources on the site are classical, although some are medieval.