How to say “tongue” in 42 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 Urdu, where زبان is the 312th most used word.
- Afrikaans tong #1,700
- Albanian gjuhën #1,050
- Armenian լեզու #1,209
- Basque mihi #1,402
- Bengali জিহ্বা #1,861
- Bosnian jezik #1,043
- Bulgarian език #1,418
- Catalan llengua #1,477
- Croatian jezik #1,051
- Czech jazyk #1,559
- Danish tunge #1,941
- Dutch tong #2,098
- English taste One of the sensations produced by the tongue… #1,232
- Esperanto langon #1,473
- French langue #1,478
- Galician lingua #1,496
- German zunge #2,385
- Greek γλώσσα #1,080
- Hebrew לשון #2,367
- Hindi मातृभाषा mother tongue, native language, first language #534
- Icelandic gellur cod tongue #2,143
- Italian lingua #1,457
- Korean 혀 #1,456
- Latvian mēli #2,248
- Lithuanian liežuvis #2,216
- Macedonian јазик #1,099
- Malay lidah #1,677
- Malayalam നാക്ക് #501
- Persian زبان #861
- Polish język #2,010
- Portuguese língua #1,575
- Romanian limba #1,228
- Russian язык #1,511
- Serbian jezik #1,027
- Slovak jazyk #782
- Slovenian jezik #481
- Spanish lengua #1,946
- Swedish tunga a tongue #2,199
- Tamil நா #1,207
- Telugu నాలుక #729
- Urdu زبان #312
- Vietnamese lưỡi #1,410
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.