How to say “tooth” in 40 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 Malayalam, where പല്ല് is the 650th most used word.
- Afrikaans tande #886
- Albanian dhëmbët #1,243
- Armenian ատամի #1,480
- Basque hortz #1,097
- Bengali দাঁত tooth; teeth #942
- Bosnian zube #1,364
- Bulgarian зъби tooth, tusk, fang #1,539
- Catalan dents #1,627
- Croatian zube #1,476
- Czech zuby #1,288
- Dutch tanden natural tooth, more specifically incisor #1,568
- Esperanto dentojn #1,784
- French dents #1,352
- Galician dentes #1,589
- German zähne #2,031
- Greek δόντια #1,354
- Hindi दाँत #1,731
- Icelandic tönn a tooth #2,164
- Italian denti #1,605
- Korean 이빨 #1,604
- Latvian zobu #1,528
- Lithuanian dantis #999
- Macedonian заби #1,223
- Malay gigi tooth: hard, calcareous structure present in… #854
- Malayalam പല്ല് #650
- Norwegian tenner a tooth #1,742
- Persian دندون #1,178
- Polish zęby #2,268
- Portuguese dentes #1,341
- Russian зубы #2,308
- Serbian zube #1,429
- Slovak zuby #767
- Slovenian zobe tooth; cog #714
- Spanish dientes #1,474
- Swedish tänder a tooth #1,512
- Tagalog ngipin #1,013
- Tamil பற்கள் #1,154
- Turkish diş #1,477
- Ukrainian зуби #1,944
- Urdu دانت #1,811
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.