this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
60 points (83.3% liked)

Linguistics Humor

1713 readers
4 users here now

Do you like languages and linguistics ? Here is for having fun about it


For serious linguistics content: !linguistics@mander.xyz


Rules:

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Now that I think of it, is there an English equivalent for "adieu"? Because French also has "au revoir" which is used more like goodbye, "adieu" carries a meaning of finality, if you say this, you know you will never see that person again, it's quite heavy and not used very frequently at all.

[–] NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

"Farewell" works for that purpose in English. And since you reminded me, that's the meaning of "sayonara" too -- you're not supposed to use it for casual goodbyes.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 points 2 days ago

Same deal with Portuguese ⟨adeus⟩. With the role of casual valediction being taken by a borrowing, ⟨tchau⟩ [tʃäʊ̯] ~ ⟨xau⟩ [ʃäʊ̯]… etymologically way more problematic, given it's ultimately from Venetan ⟨sciao⟩ [stʃäʊ̯] "slave". Originally ⟨sciao vostro⟩ "your slave" (implied: "I'm at your service").

Glad etymology doesn't dictate current meaning though.