If you’re driving and need to turn 180 degrees, you make a U-turn. But what do you make if you speak a language that doesn’t include the letter “U”? If you’re a Hindi speaker, what do you call wearing a V-neck sweater in an A-frame house? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “U-Turn in Other Languages”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Michael T. Brown calling from Irving, Texas.
Hello, Michael. Welcome.
Hiya, Michael T. Brown.
Hey, thank you.
Well, I have a question.
We use the term U-turn here in America when describing a 180-degree turn, such as switching direction from north to south or east to west. And this maneuver mimics our letter U in the English alphabet.
Now, which terms are used to describe this driving technique in languages where the letter U is not present, such as Arabic or Japanese kanji?
Michael, do you spend a lot of time on the road?
Well, I spend a little bit of time traveling abroad. Not driving, though, but I do spend a little bit of time overseas and in South America.
-huh. So is this a trick question? You already know the answer?
No, I actually do not know the answer.
Oh, but you just got wondering, what is that turn if you’re turning the steering wheel all the way to the left and you’re in Israel or something, right?
Right.
Well, I’m not affluent in any of those languages, but I should say that most of the languages have something that translates more or less as to turn around or to do an about face. It’s pretty straightforward.
And there are some languages that do have the U that do also do something like U-turn. Norwegian is usving, something like that. So it’s U hyphen S-V-I-N-G, which means literally a U-turn. And you swing around in the shape of a U.
Oh, I like that. Usving.
And all of the languages that I know anything about that have letters with characteristic kind of like shapes, like an L shape or a T shape or a plus shape or a box shape or that sort of thing, they’re often used in other languages to refer to the shape of the letter in the exact same way that we would use the U.
As a matter of fact, English has a ton of these, doesn’t it, Martha?
I was thinking of the I-beam when I edit text in a text editing program. You have that little cursor that’s the shape of an I-beam that you build a building with. That’s called an I-beam because it looks like the letter I. We have a ton of these.
And most languages will do that. It’s just one of the many ways in which humans are creative. They sometimes use a letter to have a meaning, and then they use the letter shape to refer to another meaning. So one character can do a lot of jobs.
Well, Michael T. Brown, you’ve asked an interesting question here. Now you’ve got me thinking about other letters like that. I mean, if you’re wearing a V-neck sweater inside an A-frame house, how do you eat a T-bone steak in Hindi?
Well, I guess you wouldn’t be eating a T-bone steak in Hindi.
No.
But in Arabic or, you know, I mean,
Right.
But, yeah, the languages do tend to use their alphabets in the same way that we use our alphabet. They’ll take the shape and then make a word from it to indicate something that has to do with the shape of that letter.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question.
All right.
Well, our pleasure.
Thank you so much, Michael.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Well, you sitting there in the T-shirt. This is your cue to give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
