How to say “history” in 43 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 Polish, where dzieje is the 208th most used word.
- Afrikaans geskiedenis #590
- Albanian histori #475
- Armenian պատմություն #508
- Basque historia #420
- Bengali ইতিহাস #747
- Bosnian prošlost past, history #1,308
- Bulgarian история #434
- Catalan història #349
- Chinese 史上 in history #2,149
- Croatian prošlost past, history #1,208
- Czech historie #1,870
- Danish historie #470
- Dutch geschiedenis #1,136
- Esperanto historio #685
- Galician historia #257
- Georgian ისტორიის #908
- German geschichte #490
- Greek ιστορία #352
- Hebrew היסטוריה #1,339
- Hindi इतिहास #979
- Italian storia #306
- Korean 역사 #1,612
- Latvian vēsturē #1,615
- Lithuanian istorija #406
- Macedonian историја #1,051
- Malay sejarah #679
- Malayalam ചരിത്രം #628
- Norwegian historie #619
- Persian سابقه personal history; a record #1,046
- Polish dzieje #208
- Portuguese história #311
- Romanian istoria #1,420
- Russian история #733
- Serbian prošlost past, history #1,179
- Slovak história #1,512
- Slovenian zgodovina #880
- Spanish historia #313
- Swedish historia #667
- Tagalog kasaysayan history; record or aggregate of past events #736
- Tamil வரலாறு #748
- Telugu చరిత్ర history, tale, story, account, narrative #486
- Ukrainian історія #795
- Vietnamese sử #542
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.