In Icelandic, the term for “midwife” literally translates as “light mother.” Icelanders voted it the most beautiful word in their language. Similarly, in Spanish, the phrase for “give birth,” dar a luz, translates literally as “give to light.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Most Beautiful Icelandic Word”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Not long ago, the residents of Iceland were asked what the most beautiful word in their language was.
And this was a contest put on by the University of Iceland and the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service.
They asked thousands of Icelanders to submit their choices, and they narrowed down the entries to some finalists, and then people voted on them.
The finalists included the word for enthralled, which, pardon my Icelandic, but is húfánkn.
Nice.
And the word for oh well, which is jája.
But the winner, the most beautiful word in the Icelandic language, supposedly, and again, my apologies to anybody who speaks Icelandic, is liósmóðr.
Something mother.
Yes.
Lion’s mother?
Very close.
What is that?
It literally means light mother, and it’s the Icelandic word for midwife.
Oh, so the light that first comes to you.
Yeah, isn’t that beautiful?
And I read that the other day, and I was so taken with that because in Spanish, if you give birth, you give to the light, literally.
Oh, very clever.
Yes, that is very beautiful.
I was worried that you were going to say that Reddit got a hold of the survey and gamed it and came up with something silly like Edward Snowden’s name.
That would be the end result these days.
But I like that.
Light Mother.
And Lucina in Roman mythology was the goddess of childbirth.
And you can hear the root for light in there.
Exactly.
Very nice.
Exactly.
Beautiful, right?
Very beautiful.
If you’ve got a favorite word, the most beautiful word to you in any language, let us know.
877-929-9673.
Or email us, words@waywordradio.org.
