How to say “bird” in 39 languages
Every one of these is a word that turns up in ordinary speech, not a dictionary curiosity — the number beside it is where it ranks in that language.
It is commonest in Telugu, where పక్షులు is the 384th most used word.
- Afrikaans voëls A bird #800
- Albanian zog #1,422
- Arabic طائر #1,676
- Basque txori #779
- Bengali পাখি #714
- Bosnian tiče #833
- Bulgarian птица bird, fowl #2,081
- Croatian tiče #764
- Danish fugl #2,042
- Dutch vogel bird, any member of the class Aves #1,862
- Esperanto birdo #723
- Estonian lind #1,428
- French martin bird of either the starling family, or of the… #1,625
- Galician paxaro bird, specifically a passeriform bird #1,513
- German vogel a bird #1,811
- Greek πουλί #1,405
- Hebrew בחורה girl, gal, bird - i.e: a particular woman,… #502
- Hindi पक्षियों #1,763
- Icelandic fugl #1,110
- Indonesian burung #711
- Italian uccello #2,350
- Korean 탄 a bird net used to catch birds #882
- Latvian putnu #1,257
- Lithuanian paukštis bird Aves #1,054
- Macedonian птица #1,388
- Malay burung #553
- Malayalam പക്ഷി #735
- Norwegian fugl a bird #2,378
- Persian پرنده #732
- Romanian martin bird of either the starling family, or of the… #1,289
- Serbian tiče #741
- Slovak vták #1,059
- Slovenian ptica #1,144
- Tagalog ibon #621
- Tamil பறவை #1,366
- Telugu పక్షులు #384
- Turkish kuş bird, fowl #1,155
- Urdu پرندہ #1,735
- Vietnamese chim #876
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.