How to say “birth” in 34 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 Tagalog, where silang is the 175th most used word.
- Afrikaans geboorte #647
- Albanian lindje #1,252
- Arabic ميلاد #471
- Armenian ծնել to give birth, to bear #535
- Basque erditu to give birth #1,431
- Bengali সম্ভব birth, origin #254
- Bulgarian рожден #1,009
- Catalan parís to give birth #2,069
- Danish født to bear, give birth #780
- Dutch jong to give birth, to have offspring, i.e. to… #873
- Esperanto naskis to give birth to, to bear #1,690
- French naissance #1,759
- Galician nacemento #2,036
- Georgian დაბადების #551
- German geboren to give birth; referring to labour, or to… #1,144
- Greek πατρίδα homeland, country of birth #1,586
- Hebrew הולדת #867
- Hindi जन्म #914
- Icelandic el to bear, give birth to #1,399
- Latvian dzimšanas being born, birth; verbal noun of dzimt #644
- Lithuanian gyvenimas the time between birth and death #289
- Macedonian роден to give birth to #962
- Malay lahir to be born, to give birth, to bear #794
- Malayalam ജന്മം #973
- Portuguese paris to give birth #1,326
- Russian рождество birth; nativity #1,636
- Slovenian rojstvo #1,526
- Spanish parís to give birth #1,354
- Tagalog silang birth; nativity #175
- Tamil பிறப்பு #1,117
- Telugu ఉత్పత్తి birth, creation, production, origin #801
- Ukrainian народження #788
- Urdu پیدائش origin, birth; genesis, creation #768
- Vietnamese đẻ to give birth to #1,580
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.