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Finnish forwards and backwards

I live in Finland. I hope I'll master the language one day. There are some amusing words to be found in Finnish. Poika is a boy, mies is a man, but poikamies, lit. boy-man, means a bachelor. °Õ²â³Ù³Ùö is girl so logically follows that a single woman is ±è´Ç¾±°ì²¹³¾¾±±ð²õ³Ù²â³Ù³Ùö, lit. boy-man-girl.As an aside, the Finnish language is supposed to have the longest palindrome (a word or phrase that is spelled the same forwards as backwards) saippuakauppias or soap salesman.

Sent by: Michael

Comments

Osian, Pontypridd, Wales 2009-07-18

In Welsh, there's "Lladd dafad ddall" - too kill a blind sheep. Very common in Wales!

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Lauren 2008-04-26

In Estonian, it's possible to make a noun meaning 'a bullet flying through a tunnel' which is also a very long palindrome: kuulilennuteetunneliluuk. An Estonian friend also told me a story about some boys who ask their father for bowls of milk, almost nonsense but with every word beginning with 'p'. I wish I could find out the words somewhere!

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Jonatas 2008-03-25

I know a great palindrome in Portuguese: Socorram-me, subi no onibus em Marrocos that means 'Help me, I climbed on a bus in Morocco!' Not much used in conversations as you can imagine.

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Aki 2005-09-14

±Ê´Ç¾±°ì²¹³¾¾±±ð²õ³Ù²â³Ù³Ùö is rarely heard in conversation. You would say sinkku. Which means 'single'.

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Marcin 2005-07-20

There's a sentence in Polish, which is a palindrome - Kobyła ma mały bok meaning 'the mare has a small side'.

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