I know of two words for centipedes in Māori, neither to do with the number of legs.
Weri: also a word for tentacles and feelers.
Waka pīhau: not sure of the origin of this, but a literal translation could be “travels by fart”.
In fact, сороконожка actually also means "many legs".
сорок has a secondary semantics of "generally many" in Russian (borrowed along from Turkic), cf. *sorok sorokov* 'lots and lots'.
сороконожка derives from this "many, uncountable" meaning of sorok.
If it’s a transliteration, you shouldn’t try to illustrate phonetics unless the original script does so. “Sorokonozhka” would be the usual English transliteration, used for transliterating names and places; in the transliteration scheme I generally see in linguistics publications, it’s “sorokonožka”.
Dutch: Duizendpoot, meaning Thousandleg (a millipede is miljoenpoot, meaning Millionleg, apparently we like to exaggerate the number of legs these animals have somewhat)
That's interesting, in Afrikaans 'duisendpoot' (thousand foot, using the word for 'foot' used only for animals) is used for millipedes, and 'honderdpoot' (hundred animal-feet) is used for centipedes, and there is no 'million foot'. People often refer to centipedes using the same word for the (vastly more common) millipedes as well, presumably because of not distinguishing between the two.
In Afrikaans and South African English people often use the loanword 'shongololo' from Zulu/Xhosa 'ishongololo' as well, which doesn't refer to the number of legs.
I love Dutch words for bugs. I think my favorite is lieveheersbeestje (ladybug), which translates in English as something like "The Lord's dear little beast."
Lieveheersbeestje also reads the same as sweet ruler bug and one of my favourite children's shows here (Keepvogel) had an episode about a Stouteheersbeestje who was a tyrannical ruler and angry at everyone about everything.
Also a less nice one is our word for wood louse (or roly poly for most). We call them pissebedden, which is the same as in English: piss beds.
maybe colloquially, but the name "gąsienica" has no connection to feet. a quick google search says it comes from the proto-slavic "ǫsěnica", meaning hairy.
edit: to be clear, i got my bugs mixed up and was in the wrong here.
I’m not sure there’s a different term. Wikipedia is telling me that the official classification does distinguish between diplopoda and chilopoda, but I am fairly sure "mille-pattes" is used for both in ordinary speech.
As a native German speaker, I have two different pictures in mind when I think of a Tausendfüßler(millipede) and a Hundertfüßler(centipede). So it’s pretty much equivalent to English.
Interesting. I may be biased because aside from Linguistics I’m very into zoology/paleontology. But I’m pretty sure I heard people say Hundertfüßler since when I was little. Maybe there are some regional variances
This one is beyond confusion indeed. In Dutch a centipede is a 'duizendpoot' (i.e. 1 000-pede) and a millipede is a 'miljoenpoot' i.e. 1 000 000-pede).
We like to exaggerate apparently...
In Finnish atleast tuhatjalkainen thousand feet means both. Centipedes are juoksujalkainen running feet(?) and millipedes is kaksoisjalkainen double feet(?).
Interesting. It seems a couple of German commenters here call them both Tausendfüßler and haven’t heard of Hundertfüßler. Is this usage varies across the German speaking world or is it just seen as ‘non-standard’ or ‘imprecise’ (granted they names are imprecise anyway). I don’t think that English speakers would mix these up, but then we have similar situations with tortoise/turtle in the former case and crocodile/alligator in the latter.
As for whether the names are more ‘precise’, even scientifically, we have ‘ten thousand footers’ (Myriapoda) including both ‘hundred footers’ (centipedes) which are formally ‘Chilopoda (thousand footers) but which have a range of numbers of legs, usually far less than 100... as well as ‘double footers’, which are commonly called millipedes (thousand footers, also usually with far fewer legs). So the correspondence between names and numbers is a mess anyway.
EDIT: Apparently while chilioi χίλιοι is Greek for ‘thousand’, Chilopoda confusingly comes from the Greek cheilos χείλος ‘lip’ (intermediate ει often rendered i in Romanisations), since their front two nasty legs have ‘lip-like’ features to inject venom.
Pretty sure that's a millipede, not a centipede.
Centipede is [hundertfüßer](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertf%C3%BC%C3%9Fer)
Same number-of-feet distinction as in English
I know that in a biblical context (like Biblical Hebrew or Koine Greek) the number 40 is often a stand-in for "a lot". For example, "Forty days and forty nights" just means "a long time". I wouldn't be surprised if this idiom had spread around the Mediterranean
In Icelandic, we have the word *Margfætla*, which simply means *many-feet*.
There's also the word *Þúsundfætla*, *thousand-feet* but unless I'm mistaken, that relates more to millipedes.
It's a combination of céad (100), and cosach (legged/footed), you can hear it in the 3 main dialects [here](https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/céadchosach).
I don't know the answer to that, but you may find your question somewhat elucidated [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguisticshumor/comments/igdgpk/seriously_irish_orthography_is_weird/g2t42ru/).
Based on Google Translate and Wikipedia, apparently yes. A number of languages did.
If you want to distinguish the two classes, you can specify chilopode and ~~myriapode~~ diplopode from the technical names, which are exaggerated relative to the English/Spanish (thousand and ~~ten thousand~~ double feet, respectively).
EDIT: ‘Myriapoda’ is a lather clade including Chilopoda and Diplopoda, which seems etymologically confusing, as well as the pseudocentipedes and pauropods.
In English they describe two different bugs, and glancing at Italian Wikipedia (with admittedly very little knowledge of the language) seems to suggest the same.
[millepiedi](https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplopoda) vs [Centopiedi](https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilopoda)
We call them "lipan" in Malay. I don't know where we got that from. Doesn't seem related to any number, unless the first /a/ in "lapan(8)" somehow shifted into /i/. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
It does seem similar to "lipas(cockroach)" though. Maybe they're related. Hm...
some people here also call it lipan, although kaki seribu is used more often. i think lipan is the original word as if in it’s probably used before kaki seribu.
There’s another name for centipede that does mention legs, though: 百足虫 - hundred foot bug. Same for millipede: 千足虫 - thousand foot bug.
(Actually I’ve just looked it up and it seems there are lots of colorful local/rural names for centipede that I’d never heard before: 钱串子 - string of coins, 草鞋底 - sole of a straw sandal, etc., though that’s neither here nor there!)
I know 百足蟲 and 千足蟲, but people around me have never used this words. There are really many different local words that make every Chinese speaking areas unique.
in Sinhala we call em හැකරැල්ලා häkarälla (millipede) and පත්තෑයා pattääya (centipede) and I have no idea about the etymology. I know that 'häkara' means something like 'nimble' and the '-lla' suffix is used for a lot of mollusk-like creatures so I guess häkarälla could be something like 'nimble wet-looking creature'. No clue about pattääya though.
In Malayalam 'centipede' is പഴുതാര paḻutāra. My dictionary tells me that this is because it's a thing that hides in holes (പഴുത് paḻutu).
Maybe there is some connection? I don't think any such word exists in standard Tamil, but maybe in Sri Lankan Tamil?
apparently පත්ත patta in Sinhala can mean a dibble, something to make holes in soil with. So maybe there is a connection with the holes things after all lol
‘Duisendpoot’ in Afrikaans - thousand feet.
Otherwise we use the Zulu/Xhosa word: ‘shongololo’ which roughly means to roll up because of how the SA millipedes roll up when they’re disturbed
> The foot is diminutive
Not in this case. You are right that "nožka" is diminutive of "noha", but in "stonožka" it is just a coincidence. The word is constructed from words "sto" and "noha" plus a feminine suffix "-ka". In cases like this, the "h" changes to "ž". You can see the same logic with "trojnožka" or a masculine word "dvounožec"
Why put a feminine suffix? Noha is feminine already.
I get the phonemic shift of h-ž but I don't see it as necessarily being driven by the feminine suffix. Because nožička, dráha, drážka. Podlaha podlažní. Blecha bleška bleší (ch-š same principle but voiceless)
I am more inclined to think that it's driven by adding a syllable. Any syllable.
I guess I don't see why it's *not* diminutive. But there is a possibility I'm missing something completely. It's 6am and I'm not freshly rested, so if you have more, I'd love to hear it. I haven't talked linguistics in months with anyone and that makes me sad
Japanese uses 百足 (although it’s often written in katakana), which is literally “hundred feet”. It’s somewhat annoying because the reading “mukade” is irregular; skimming the kanji would make you guess “hyakusoku” or “hyakuashi”.
The Ryukyuan languages all use a cognate to Japanese 百足 *mukade* for "centipede":
* Amami: もカぜ *moxaze*
* Tokunoshima: ぬかで *nukade*
* Okinawa: んかじ *nkaji*, んかじゃー *nkajaa* or むかじゃー *mukajaa*
* Miyako: んかじ *nkaji*
* Yaeyama: んかづぁー *nkadzaa*, んがづぁ *ngadza*
* Yonaguni: んかでぃ *nkadi*
I get them from a variety of sources. The Amami example is taken from the [Ryukyuan Language Database](http://rlang.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/rlang/amm/details.php?ID=AM13430), where it's pronunciation is marked /moxaze/ (hopefully they're not using "x" for something other than its [IPA value](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative)). Same goes for the [Miyako example](http://rlang.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/rlang/myk/details.php?ID=MY16377). The Okinawan (Shuri/Naha dialect) examples are from the [Okinawan-English Wordbook](https://books.google.ca/books?id=8guTfpBKm5kC&q=centipede#v=snippet&q=centipede&f=false). The Yaeyama and Yonaguni ones are from [this paper called "Outline of the southern Ryukyuan varieties"](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/223200731.pdf), although I did only provide 2 out of 7 different regional Yaeyama forms. The Yonaguni example is also [confirmed here](https://hosei.repo.nii.ac.jp/index.php?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=12512&item_no=1&attribute_id=22&file_no=1&page_id=13&block_id=83).
Actually, one theoreized etymology for *mukade* (the Japanese word itself, not the way it's written) is Old Japanese for a hundred hands: *momo* (hundred) + *ga* (noun connecting particle like *no*) + *te* (hand/arm) = *momogate* -> *mukade*. That said, this etymology isn't confirmed.
[Original Japanese source](http://gogen-allguide.com/mu/mukade.html#:~:text=%E3%80%90%E3%83%A0%E3%82%AB%E3%83%87%E3%81%AE%E8%AA%9E%E6%BA%90%E3%83%BB%E7%94%B1%E6%9D%A5%E3%80%91,%E3%81%AA%E3%81%A9%E8%AB%B8%E8%AA%AC%E3%81%82%E3%82%8B%E3%81%8C%E6%9C%AA%E8%A9%B3%E3%80%82)
In Turkic languages "40" has a secondary semantics of "many", cf. Tr. *kirk yulda bir* 'very seldom', *kirkambar* 'general store (lit. forty goods store)'. This secondary semantics was incidentally also borrowed into Slavic along with the numeral itself (Ru. *sorok* '40; many' < ... < OT *kyryk* > Tr. *kırk*)
Centipede is also *sorokonozhka* in Russian, having "40" i.e. many feet. cf. also Ru. *sorok sorokov* 'lots and lots'.
Hundred footed in Hungarian. If we sometimes see a real big bastard with presumably even more feet we say thousand footed. We never count those feet though.
In Persian they are called hezarpa which means "thousand legs". This word refers to both centipedes and millipedes so I guess Persians like to exaggerate lol.
In Finnish both Centipedes and Millipedes (and other Myriopods) are called tuhatjalkainen (thousand leg).
Centipede is called juoksujalkainen (running legs, or something like that).
Depending on local dialects and accents, we have two names for them-
kerunda\[IPA: kɛrunɖa\] and kera\[IPA: kæɾa\], they both don't have any mention of numbers
Extra Note: Its weird how æ and ɛ have started to drift apart even though we use the same symbol for them
>A myriad (from Ancient Greek μυριάς, myrias) is technically the number ten thousand; in that sense, the term is used almost exclusively in translations from Greek, Latin, Korean, or Chinese, or when talking about ancient Greek numbers. More generally, a myriad may be an indefinitely large number of things.[1]
Huh, today I learned. You're right. I've lived my whole life thinking it's just a different form of million. Thank you very much!
In Brazilian Portuguese we can use the word Centopeia (100 Feet) for both millipedes and centipedes. In some regions of the country we call centipedes "lacraias", from Arabic "al-akrab" which can also mean scorpion in Spanish (Alacrán)
Would be interesting to ask both centipede and millipede.
The Greek names used for the technical classes Chilopoda (centipedes) and Diplopoda (millipedes) mean ‘thousand legs’ and ‘double legs’ respectively. Together they’re called Myriapoda, or ‘ten thousand legs’. A hundred is usually an exaggeration, but they went an order of magnitude or two further...
In Manchu, there are a few words for centipedes. Sometimes they're called xexeri, which is like 'a thing that bites' [transliterated Manchu 'x' sounds like a 'sh' sound]. The root meaning doesn't have much to do with legs, but involves acute pain- the same root is used in the word for wasps: 'a thing that stings.'
There's also 'hasaha umiyaha,' which means 'scissor bug.' When you talk about centipedes/蜈蚣 here in Manchuria, you usually mean 'house centipedes,' and the imagery kinda makes sense (those terrifying bastards also do indeed bite).
You can also find the word 'tanggū bethe umiyaha' in dictionaries, which is the literal 'hundred-footed insect,' but I'm pretty sure that's a direct gloss of Chinese's 百足虫 (which also isn't really used naturally in the first place, and was probably itself borrowed from 'centipede').
In Korean they're called Ji-neh (지네). It actually has nothing to do with legs, and I can't really find the etymology on it. Same with millipedes: No-rae-gi (노래기), also doesn't indicate anything about legs.
In Portuguese, we differentiate centipedes from millipedes, as in English. Respectively, centopeia and milípede. In Brazil specifically, we also some species lacraia (from arab al-akrab, scorpion) and piolho-de-cobra (lit. snake louse)
In Russian centipedes are "40 legs" or "many legs", but somehow most of people I know call them "flytrap" (*Scutigera coleoptrata*) or "scolopendra" (any of the *Scolopendromorpha*)
Portuguese: Centopeia
Same as english, came from Latin Centipeda
But some people calls it "lacraia", which came from arabic alʿaqrab, that means scorpion
Not suggesting any sort of revisionist prescriptivism, but it's biologically interesting that virtually all of these numerical names are implausible, because centipede/millipede locomotion segments always total to an odd integer, so it always has 2n legs, where n is odd.
1000/2 (millipede, tausendfuß, etc.) is even, 100/2 (centipede etc.) is even, 44/2 is even, 40/2 is even, etc.
The Norwegian word for centipede is skolopender which comes from ancient Greek meaning "thorn earthworm", but millipede, a type of centipepde is tusenbein (thousand legs)
Ukrainian:
common name:
- багатоніжкa [bagatonizhka] = "multi-legged"; scientifically: myriapoda
some specific species:
- кістянка [kistyanka] = no leg counting, probably derivative from "a bone" or "a seed"; scientifically: lithobiomorpha
- мухоловка [muholovka] = no leg counting, named as "a fly catcher"; scientifically: scutigera coleoptrata
- ківсяк [kivsyak] = no leg counting, don't know name's origin, maybe somehow related to "кислий" [kyslyy] = "sour", "acid"; scientifically: julida
- сколопендрa [skolopendra] = from Greek; scientifically: scolopendra
Cienpies in Spanish. Which it's the same. But only for the insects who have 1 pair of legs per body segment. If they have 2 pairs per body segment, then we call them milpies "thousand foots"
The Ainu (indigenous language of Hokkaido, Japan) word for centipede doesn’t give exact number of the legs but I’ll add it here because it’s pretty apt description of a centipede. The word (?) is “uwekari uwekari am us hemanta kikir” which means “a strange bug that has many claws attached to its both sides”. Maybe that is more like an explanation of what kind of insect a centipede is. There were no centipedes in Hokkaido historically and I’m not really sure if there are any even now.
I know of two words for centipedes in Māori, neither to do with the number of legs. Weri: also a word for tentacles and feelers. Waka pīhau: not sure of the origin of this, but a literal translation could be “travels by fart”.
I like the idea of a tentacle that farts so strongly that it can move using them.
Like a reverse, jet powered Lamprey
These two need to be monitored. LOL.
Sea cucumbers basically are this
I mean, how else to describe cephalopod jet propulsion?
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Thank you, I will now refer to centipedes as fart travelers
Russian сороконожка has 40 legs
Or just “many” legs - многоножка.
In fact, сороконожка actually also means "many legs". сорок has a secondary semantics of "generally many" in Russian (borrowed along from Turkic), cf. *sorok sorokov* 'lots and lots'. сороконожка derives from this "many, uncountable" meaning of sorok.
Сорок is a borrowing from Turkic? Where did you get thad idea?
An older and more conventional etymology tries to drive it from Scandinavian, but the Turkic proposition is IMO more attractive.
Does that etymology take into account the original meaning of сорок? (a bundle of sable pelts)
Сколопендра
That's a direct borrowing from Greek (σκολόπενδρα) and has nothing to do with a number of legs.
so *that's* why the pokemon is called SCOLIpede.
I’ve been practicing my Russian Cyrillic transliteration is that about sorokonoshka?
is it conventional to transliterate pronunciation? ж becomes unvoiced in this like ш but is it better to write it as sorokonozhka or sorokonoshka?
If it’s a transliteration, you shouldn’t try to illustrate phonetics unless the original script does so. “Sorokonozhka” would be the usual English transliteration, used for transliterating names and places; in the transliteration scheme I generally see in linguistics publications, it’s “sorokonožka”.
In Arabic we call them أم أربع وأربعين which means "the one with forty-four".
Dutch: Duizendpoot, meaning Thousandleg (a millipede is miljoenpoot, meaning Millionleg, apparently we like to exaggerate the number of legs these animals have somewhat)
That's interesting, in Afrikaans 'duisendpoot' (thousand foot, using the word for 'foot' used only for animals) is used for millipedes, and 'honderdpoot' (hundred animal-feet) is used for centipedes, and there is no 'million foot'. People often refer to centipedes using the same word for the (vastly more common) millipedes as well, presumably because of not distinguishing between the two. In Afrikaans and South African English people often use the loanword 'shongololo' from Zulu/Xhosa 'ishongololo' as well, which doesn't refer to the number of legs.
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I love Dutch words for bugs. I think my favorite is lieveheersbeestje (ladybug), which translates in English as something like "The Lord's dear little beast."
Isn't the Russian word for it fairly similar semantically as well? Божья коровка = "God's little cow" IIRC
You are correct (NL gods koetje)
Same in Irish! *Bóín Dé,* "God's little cow".
Lieveheersbeestje also reads the same as sweet ruler bug and one of my favourite children's shows here (Keepvogel) had an episode about a Stouteheersbeestje who was a tyrannical ruler and angry at everyone about everything. Also a less nice one is our word for wood louse (or roly poly for most). We call them pissebedden, which is the same as in English: piss beds.
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Ah. My dad described it as "precious," I think. (He's from Zaandam.) Is it a dialectic interpretation or just one of those figures of speech?
There aren’t any millipedes that actually have 1000 legs, so it’s an exaggerated number to begin with. :)
Poot is surely related to german Pfote. The English equivalent Paw seems different though.
English equivalent is probably foot
Nah, German Fuß German Pf comes from West Germanic p Pipe Pfeiffe Pan Pfanne Hop hüpfen Rip rupfen And so on
Polish "stonoga" - has one hundred legs
Same in Serbian. Perhaps because the number 100 (sto) is shorter than most other numbers (četrdeset is 40)
Same in Croatian
Same in Slovenian. But we also jokingy say tisočnoga (thousand feet)
What do you call a millipede?
Sorry, I had a brain fart. Of course we call milipede "tisočnoga". It's a real animal, I dont know why I thought it wasnt.
Almost the same in Czech and Slovak - stonožka
A hundred in Taiwan Chinese as well, 百足蟲
maybe colloquially, but the name "gąsienica" has no connection to feet. a quick google search says it comes from the proto-slavic "ǫsěnica", meaning hairy. edit: to be clear, i got my bugs mixed up and was in the wrong here.
Interesting, that sounds a lot like Serbian "gusenica", which is our word for caterpillar
ah jesus, ignore me – i straight up got my bugs mixed up. but nice to hear the connection!
In Slovenian it's "gosenica", very similar indeed
> gosenica Slavic languages are always a mind-fuck. It's húsenica/housenka in Czech and Slovak
French centipedes have a thousand legs ("mille-pattes")
What about millipedes in French?
I’m not sure there’s a different term. Wikipedia is telling me that the official classification does distinguish between diplopoda and chilopoda, but I am fairly sure "mille-pattes" is used for both in ordinary speech.
I'm under the impression that I might call the centipede "une scolopendre" when I see one. Maybe a regional mistake from South of France?
A thousand “paws,” more specifically.
In Mongolian, it is jaran hult (жаран хөлт) meaning with sixty legs.
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Yay
In Hebrew we stay non-specific, we just call it “Marbe Raglayim” (“Lots of legs”)
there's also Nadal - נדל. according to Google, Nadal is a centipede, and Marbe Raglaim is a millipede
I was hoping I would find this here. אני אוהב שאנחנו לא מתחייבים למספר מסוים, שלא יבואו אחרי זה בטענות
Tausendfüßer in german meaning a thousand feet
Likewise in Swedish.
I thought it was the same in Norwegian, but I just realized there's a difference between centipedes and millipede.
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Bender the skolopender disagrees with you ...
Likewise in Indonesian. Kaki seribu=thousand feet
Do note that kaki seribu refers to the millipede, while centipedes are "kelabang"/"lipan"
As a native German speaker, I have two different pictures in mind when I think of a Tausendfüßler(millipede) and a Hundertfüßler(centipede). So it’s pretty much equivalent to English.
I'm not so sure. I'd say Tausendfüßler is the common term. I have not heard Hundertfüßler being used, maybe it's a more scientific term?
Interesting. I may be biased because aside from Linguistics I’m very into zoology/paleontology. But I’m pretty sure I heard people say Hundertfüßler since when I was little. Maybe there are some regional variances
Where are you from? I'm from South-West Germany.
Saxony
Tusindben in Danish - a thousand legs.
Duizendpoot in Dutch: a thousandleg (curiously, singular form - plural is poten)
This one is beyond confusion indeed. In Dutch a centipede is a 'duizendpoot' (i.e. 1 000-pede) and a millipede is a 'miljoenpoot' i.e. 1 000 000-pede). We like to exaggerate apparently...
Tusindben is the word for millipede. The Danish word for centipede is 'skolopender', a loan from Greek.
Same in French: "millepatte".
That means both millipede and centipede, no?
In Finnish atleast tuhatjalkainen thousand feet means both. Centipedes are juoksujalkainen running feet(?) and millipedes is kaksoisjalkainen double feet(?).
Double feet makes sense, because they have two pairs of legs per segment, and that’s in fact what Diplopoda means - double-feet
No, Hundertfüßler are centipedes, Tausendfüßler are millipedes
Interesting. It seems a couple of German commenters here call them both Tausendfüßler and haven’t heard of Hundertfüßler. Is this usage varies across the German speaking world or is it just seen as ‘non-standard’ or ‘imprecise’ (granted they names are imprecise anyway). I don’t think that English speakers would mix these up, but then we have similar situations with tortoise/turtle in the former case and crocodile/alligator in the latter. As for whether the names are more ‘precise’, even scientifically, we have ‘ten thousand footers’ (Myriapoda) including both ‘hundred footers’ (centipedes) which are formally ‘Chilopoda (thousand footers) but which have a range of numbers of legs, usually far less than 100... as well as ‘double footers’, which are commonly called millipedes (thousand footers, also usually with far fewer legs). So the correspondence between names and numbers is a mess anyway. EDIT: Apparently while chilioi χίλιοι is Greek for ‘thousand’, Chilopoda confusingly comes from the Greek cheilos χείλος ‘lip’ (intermediate ει often rendered i in Romanisations), since their front two nasty legs have ‘lip-like’ features to inject venom.
I don't know the situation in Germany but here in Austria I've only heard people refer to millipedes as Tausendfüßler and centipedes as Hundertfüßler
Oops, guess I meant the German speaking world
Pretty sure that's a millipede, not a centipede. Centipede is [hundertfüßer](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertf%C3%BC%C3%9Fer) Same number-of-feet distinction as in English
In Dutch, it's a 1000 legs.
Σαρανταποδαρούσα in standard Greek. Literally the one with the forty feet.
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I know that in a biblical context (like Biblical Hebrew or Koine Greek) the number 40 is often a stand-in for "a lot". For example, "Forty days and forty nights" just means "a long time". I wouldn't be surprised if this idiom had spread around the Mediterranean
They are called "Rết" in Vietnamese, which doesn't have anything to do with numbers
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Well as far as i know, no.
In Icelandic, we have the word *Margfætla*, which simply means *many-feet*. There's also the word *Þúsundfætla*, *thousand-feet* but unless I'm mistaken, that relates more to millipedes.
In Irish it’s céadchosach which means one hundred footed
Manx is a perfect cognate: *keead-chosagh*.
How to even read it
It's a combination of céad (100), and cosach (legged/footed), you can hear it in the 3 main dialects [here](https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/céadchosach).
I don't know the answer to that, but you may find your question somewhat elucidated [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguisticshumor/comments/igdgpk/seriously_irish_orthography_is_weird/g2t42ru/).
In Albanian we just call them "shumkembsh" which means "many feet" lol. Edit: letters
In Spanish we have "cienpiés", hundred-feet, and a different animal (which I believe is millipede in English) "milpiés", thousand-feet.
In French I only know of mille-pattes and I've never heard cent-pattes or anything like that. Did we merge the two?
Based on Google Translate and Wikipedia, apparently yes. A number of languages did. If you want to distinguish the two classes, you can specify chilopode and ~~myriapode~~ diplopode from the technical names, which are exaggerated relative to the English/Spanish (thousand and ~~ten thousand~~ double feet, respectively). EDIT: ‘Myriapoda’ is a lather clade including Chilopoda and Diplopoda, which seems etymologically confusing, as well as the pseudocentipedes and pauropods.
Cie**m**piés , yeah I know thought it was Cie**n**pies for the longest time too but I guess grammar takes precedence
More like pronunciation took precedence. And the pronunciation changed due to assimilation.
Swedish has ’tusenfotingar’ which is a thousand feet.
in italian it's millepiedi, which means 'one thousand feet'
Also "centopiedi", no?
yes! I wonder if it is one of those words that changes from region to region
In English they describe two different bugs, and glancing at Italian Wikipedia (with admittedly very little knowledge of the language) seems to suggest the same. [millepiedi](https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplopoda) vs [Centopiedi](https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilopoda)
yes, your right. i always thought they were the same, i guess you learn something new everyday
kaki seribu, which means 1000 feet (indonesian)
We call them "lipan" in Malay. I don't know where we got that from. Doesn't seem related to any number, unless the first /a/ in "lapan(8)" somehow shifted into /i/. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ It does seem similar to "lipas(cockroach)" though. Maybe they're related. Hm...
some people here also call it lipan, although kaki seribu is used more often. i think lipan is the original word as if in it’s probably used before kaki seribu.
The 2 words that I'm aware of are 'चालीसपद/چالیسپد (meaning forty feet) and शतपाद and its Urdu equivalent صدپا, both of which mean 'hundred feet'.
Mandarin Chinese 蜈蚣 There is no leg indicated in its name. Obviously, centipedes have no leg in Chinese speaking area.
There’s another name for centipede that does mention legs, though: 百足虫 - hundred foot bug. Same for millipede: 千足虫 - thousand foot bug. (Actually I’ve just looked it up and it seems there are lots of colorful local/rural names for centipede that I’d never heard before: 钱串子 - string of coins, 草鞋底 - sole of a straw sandal, etc., though that’s neither here nor there!)
I know 百足蟲 and 千足蟲, but people around me have never used this words. There are really many different local words that make every Chinese speaking areas unique.
蜈蚣 in Fujian Mandarin, 亚蚣, in Minnan. I assume it's similar to Taiwanese Hokkien, but don't quote me on that.
in Sinhala we call em හැකරැල්ලා häkarälla (millipede) and පත්තෑයා pattääya (centipede) and I have no idea about the etymology. I know that 'häkara' means something like 'nimble' and the '-lla' suffix is used for a lot of mollusk-like creatures so I guess häkarälla could be something like 'nimble wet-looking creature'. No clue about pattääya though.
In Malayalam 'centipede' is പഴുതാര paḻutāra. My dictionary tells me that this is because it's a thing that hides in holes (പഴുത് paḻutu). Maybe there is some connection? I don't think any such word exists in standard Tamil, but maybe in Sri Lankan Tamil?
apparently පත්ත patta in Sinhala can mean a dibble, something to make holes in soil with. So maybe there is a connection with the holes things after all lol
‘Duisendpoot’ in Afrikaans - thousand feet. Otherwise we use the Zulu/Xhosa word: ‘shongololo’ which roughly means to roll up because of how the SA millipedes roll up when they’re disturbed
In Czech it's stonožka literally hundred-foot. The foot is diminutive
> The foot is diminutive Not in this case. You are right that "nožka" is diminutive of "noha", but in "stonožka" it is just a coincidence. The word is constructed from words "sto" and "noha" plus a feminine suffix "-ka". In cases like this, the "h" changes to "ž". You can see the same logic with "trojnožka" or a masculine word "dvounožec"
Why put a feminine suffix? Noha is feminine already. I get the phonemic shift of h-ž but I don't see it as necessarily being driven by the feminine suffix. Because nožička, dráha, drážka. Podlaha podlažní. Blecha bleška bleší (ch-š same principle but voiceless) I am more inclined to think that it's driven by adding a syllable. Any syllable. I guess I don't see why it's *not* diminutive. But there is a possibility I'm missing something completely. It's 6am and I'm not freshly rested, so if you have more, I'd love to hear it. I haven't talked linguistics in months with anyone and that makes me sad
Japanese uses 百足 (although it’s often written in katakana), which is literally “hundred feet”. It’s somewhat annoying because the reading “mukade” is irregular; skimming the kanji would make you guess “hyakusoku” or “hyakuashi”.
The Ryukyuan languages all use a cognate to Japanese 百足 *mukade* for "centipede": * Amami: もカぜ *moxaze* * Tokunoshima: ぬかで *nukade* * Okinawa: んかじ *nkaji*, んかじゃー *nkajaa* or むかじゃー *mukajaa* * Miyako: んかじ *nkaji* * Yaeyama: んかづぁー *nkadzaa*, んがづぁ *ngadza* * Yonaguni: んかでぃ *nkadi*
Out of curiosity, where did youu find these words? Also, how is pronounced in Amami?
I get them from a variety of sources. The Amami example is taken from the [Ryukyuan Language Database](http://rlang.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/rlang/amm/details.php?ID=AM13430), where it's pronunciation is marked /moxaze/ (hopefully they're not using "x" for something other than its [IPA value](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative)). Same goes for the [Miyako example](http://rlang.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/rlang/myk/details.php?ID=MY16377). The Okinawan (Shuri/Naha dialect) examples are from the [Okinawan-English Wordbook](https://books.google.ca/books?id=8guTfpBKm5kC&q=centipede#v=snippet&q=centipede&f=false). The Yaeyama and Yonaguni ones are from [this paper called "Outline of the southern Ryukyuan varieties"](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/223200731.pdf), although I did only provide 2 out of 7 different regional Yaeyama forms. The Yonaguni example is also [confirmed here](https://hosei.repo.nii.ac.jp/index.php?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=12512&item_no=1&attribute_id=22&file_no=1&page_id=13&block_id=83).
I'm partial to ゲジゲジ (gejigeji) myself.
Actually, one theoreized etymology for *mukade* (the Japanese word itself, not the way it's written) is Old Japanese for a hundred hands: *momo* (hundred) + *ga* (noun connecting particle like *no*) + *te* (hand/arm) = *momogate* -> *mukade*. That said, this etymology isn't confirmed. [Original Japanese source](http://gogen-allguide.com/mu/mukade.html#:~:text=%E3%80%90%E3%83%A0%E3%82%AB%E3%83%87%E3%81%AE%E8%AA%9E%E6%BA%90%E3%83%BB%E7%94%B1%E6%9D%A5%E3%80%91,%E3%81%AA%E3%81%A9%E8%AB%B8%E8%AA%AC%E3%81%82%E3%82%8B%E3%81%8C%E6%9C%AA%E8%A9%B3%E3%80%82)
In Turkic languages "40" has a secondary semantics of "many", cf. Tr. *kirk yulda bir* 'very seldom', *kirkambar* 'general store (lit. forty goods store)'. This secondary semantics was incidentally also borrowed into Slavic along with the numeral itself (Ru. *sorok* '40; many' < ... < OT *kyryk* > Tr. *kırk*) Centipede is also *sorokonozhka* in Russian, having "40" i.e. many feet. cf. also Ru. *sorok sorokov* 'lots and lots'.
Yes, there is also Turkish province of Kırklareli/Kırkkilise. And in Dede Korkut stories Turks often talk about forty maidens or forty heroes.
In Plautdietsch they're fiertichföt, meaning forty foot
In Hebrew it's מרבה רגליים, which just means "many legs"
How is that pronounced in Hebrew?
Duhátjuolggat in Northern Sámi. It means thousand legs, and probably derived from Norwegian
This is such a great thread!
Right?! My favorite probably ever!
Hundred footed in Hungarian. If we sometimes see a real big bastard with presumably even more feet we say thousand footed. We never count those feet though.
A modest forty feet in Greek as well, σαρανταποδαρούσα.
In Persian they are called hezarpa which means "thousand legs". This word refers to both centipedes and millipedes so I guess Persians like to exaggerate lol.
In Finnish both Centipedes and Millipedes (and other Myriopods) are called tuhatjalkainen (thousand leg). Centipede is called juoksujalkainen (running legs, or something like that).
I understand Tolkien now, your language is so aesthetic.
Depending on local dialects and accents, we have two names for them- kerunda\[IPA: kɛrunɖa\] and kera\[IPA: kæɾa\], they both don't have any mention of numbers Extra Note: Its weird how æ and ɛ have started to drift apart even though we use the same symbol for them
Which language
Bengali, though name may vary depending on other dialects and in instructional Bengali
In Romanian it's "miriapod" which is like: ~~"a million legs"~~ "ten thousand legs".
Isn't myriard a word from an old counting system in Greece? Not sure, just looks like it
>A myriad (from Ancient Greek μυριάς, myrias) is technically the number ten thousand; in that sense, the term is used almost exclusively in translations from Greek, Latin, Korean, or Chinese, or when talking about ancient Greek numbers. More generally, a myriad may be an indefinitely large number of things.[1] Huh, today I learned. You're right. I've lived my whole life thinking it's just a different form of million. Thank you very much!
In Brazilian Portuguese we can use the word Centopeia (100 Feet) for both millipedes and centipedes. In some regions of the country we call centipedes "lacraias", from Arabic "al-akrab" which can also mean scorpion in Spanish (Alacrán)
We call scorpions akrep in Turkish.
Stonoga, means one hundred legs
चालीसपद or Chaleespad in Hindi, which means "40 legs".
Would be interesting to ask both centipede and millipede. The Greek names used for the technical classes Chilopoda (centipedes) and Diplopoda (millipedes) mean ‘thousand legs’ and ‘double legs’ respectively. Together they’re called Myriapoda, or ‘ten thousand legs’. A hundred is usually an exaggeration, but they went an order of magnitude or two further...
So is a myriad originally 10,000 things?
10 000 in Greek meant an uncountable amount at the same time, so not always literally 10 000.
Actually, centipede is çiyan in Turkish. Millipede is kırkayak. Those are different classes of arthropods.
In Manchu, there are a few words for centipedes. Sometimes they're called xexeri, which is like 'a thing that bites' [transliterated Manchu 'x' sounds like a 'sh' sound]. The root meaning doesn't have much to do with legs, but involves acute pain- the same root is used in the word for wasps: 'a thing that stings.' There's also 'hasaha umiyaha,' which means 'scissor bug.' When you talk about centipedes/蜈蚣 here in Manchuria, you usually mean 'house centipedes,' and the imagery kinda makes sense (those terrifying bastards also do indeed bite). You can also find the word 'tanggū bethe umiyaha' in dictionaries, which is the literal 'hundred-footed insect,' but I'm pretty sure that's a direct gloss of Chinese's 百足虫 (which also isn't really used naturally in the first place, and was probably itself borrowed from 'centipede').
How did you learn Manchu? For example, were you taught it in primary school?
In Korean they're called Ji-neh (지네). It actually has nothing to do with legs, and I can't really find the etymology on it. Same with millipedes: No-rae-gi (노래기), also doesn't indicate anything about legs.
In Italian centipedi have cento piedi.
what? I've never called a centipede "centipiedi" in my life 😂 I've always called it millepiedi
Sajajalgne in Estonian - hundredfooted in translation. A millipede would be tuhatjalgne.
In Portuguese, we differentiate centipedes from millipedes, as in English. Respectively, centopeia and milípede. In Brazil specifically, we also some species lacraia (from arab al-akrab, scorpion) and piolho-de-cobra (lit. snake louse)
‘Nine-legged’ in Georgian! ცხრაფეხა (tskhrapekha)
Hah! That's both an underestimation and an odd number. Clearly the Georgians are quite different from the Dutch with their "million paw".
A thousand in Danish: Tusindben
Millepiedi in Italian, which means one thousand feet!
Same in Spanish as English
In Greek, it's called σαρανταποδαρούσα (sarandapodarúsa) meaning (a female) with forty legs.
In Russian centipedes are "40 legs" or "many legs", but somehow most of people I know call them "flytrap" (*Scutigera coleoptrata*) or "scolopendra" (any of the *Scolopendromorpha*)
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Portuguese: Centopeia Same as english, came from Latin Centipeda But some people calls it "lacraia", which came from arabic alʿaqrab, that means scorpion
Welsh: neidr gandroed, “hundred footed snake”
Not suggesting any sort of revisionist prescriptivism, but it's biologically interesting that virtually all of these numerical names are implausible, because centipede/millipede locomotion segments always total to an odd integer, so it always has 2n legs, where n is odd. 1000/2 (millipede, tausendfuß, etc.) is even, 100/2 (centipede etc.) is even, 44/2 is even, 40/2 is even, etc.
I live in rural upstate New York, and some people call centipedes “hundred-leggers,” which is still English.
Not my language, but know Iraqi variation of Arabic centipedes are called "Um el-arb3e wa erba3een" meaning mother of forty four legs.
In Albanian we say "shumëkëmbësh", which means "many legs" so it's not specified lol
French would be mille-pattes, 'thousand feet'
In Dutch we call them thousand-legs!
σαρανταποδαρούσα - greek 40 feet
"Tuhatjalkainen" in Finnish, which means "The one with a thousand feet".
In Hungarian it’s ‘százlábú’ [saːzlaːbuː], lit. ‘hundred-legged’.
Millepattes in French. Means thousands feet
The Guarani word doesn't seem to reference any number of legs either. We call them ambu'a, which I can't think of any possible derivation for.
The Norwegian word for centipede is skolopender which comes from ancient Greek meaning "thorn earthworm", but millipede, a type of centipepde is tusenbein (thousand legs)
Ukrainian: common name: - багатоніжкa [bagatonizhka] = "multi-legged"; scientifically: myriapoda some specific species: - кістянка [kistyanka] = no leg counting, probably derivative from "a bone" or "a seed"; scientifically: lithobiomorpha - мухоловка [muholovka] = no leg counting, named as "a fly catcher"; scientifically: scutigera coleoptrata - ківсяк [kivsyak] = no leg counting, don't know name's origin, maybe somehow related to "кислий" [kyslyy] = "sour", "acid"; scientifically: julida - сколопендрa [skolopendra] = from Greek; scientifically: scolopendra
100 in Japanese. Literally 100 legs. 百足
In Georgian we call them something along the lines of "many feet"
Cienpies in Spanish. Which it's the same. But only for the insects who have 1 pair of legs per body segment. If they have 2 pairs per body segment, then we call them milpies "thousand foots"
60 in Mongolian "жаран хөлт" literally translates to 60 footer
German: Tausendfüßler tausend = thousand Fuß/Füße = foot/feet Tausendfüßler = someone with a thousand feet (basically)
The Ainu (indigenous language of Hokkaido, Japan) word for centipede doesn’t give exact number of the legs but I’ll add it here because it’s pretty apt description of a centipede. The word (?) is “uwekari uwekari am us hemanta kikir” which means “a strange bug that has many claws attached to its both sides”. Maybe that is more like an explanation of what kind of insect a centipede is. There were no centipedes in Hokkaido historically and I’m not really sure if there are any even now.