How to say “die” in 49 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 Persian, where مرد is the 88th most used word.
- Afrikaans sterf to die #288
- Albanian vdes to die #362
- Arabic مات to die #219
- Armenian մեռա to die #817
- Bengali মরে to die #435
- Bosnian umro to die #573
- Bulgarian умра to die, to mortify, to pass away, to depart #802
- Catalan mort to die #160
- Chinese 死亡 to die #167
- Croatian umrijeti to die #535
- Czech zemřít to die, to pass away, to decease #1,088
- Danish død #189
- Dutch sterven to die #529
- Esperanto mortis to die, pass away #252
- Estonian surra to die #715
- Finnish kuollut to die #260
- French mort to die; to be dying #170
- Galician morrer to die #351
- Georgian მოკვდა to die #463
- German sterben to die #403
- Greek πέθανε to die #417
- Hebrew מת To die #185
- Hindi मर to die, to perish #203
- Hungarian meghalt to die #352
- Icelandic deyja to die #248
- Indonesian mati to die #101
- Italian morendo to die #1,739
- Latvian mirt to die #947
- Lithuanian mirė to die #313
- Macedonian умре to die #297
- Malay meninggal to die; to pass away #510
- Malayalam മരിക്കുക to die #1,656
- Norwegian dø to die #299
- Persian مرد to die #88
- Polish umrzeć to die #1,022
- Portuguese morrer to die #315
- Romanian murit to die #329
- Russian умереть to die of natural causes #926
- Serbian umro to die #558
- Slovak zomrieť to die #468
- Slovenian umreti to die #369
- Spanish muerto to die #308
- Swedish dö to die #311
- Tagalog mamatay to die #237
- Tamil செத்த to die, pass away #1,823
- Turkish öldü to die #328
- Ukrainian померти to die #991
- Urdu مرنا to die, to be dead #960
- Vietnamese toi to die in epidemic #2,139
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.