# Milky Way



## Whodunit

I'd like to know how other languages treat appearences of our galaxy. In German as well as in English we use "*Milchstraße*" and "*Milky Way*", respectively. So, we are referring to the whiteness/milk-like color of the galaxy. 

Thank you.


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## Jana337

Czech: Mléčná dráha.
mléko - milk
dráha - path, track, line

Jana


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## Like an Angel

En castellano Vía Láctea, so, the same


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## Tay

In Spanish too, it is called Vía Láctea
Láctea refers to dairy


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## Outsider

Portuguese: *Via Láctea*
From the Latin name.


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## amikama

Hebrew: *שביל החלב* (literally "way of milk").


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## diegodbs

amikama said:
			
		

> Hebrew: *שביל החלב* (literally "way of milk").


 
Hi Amikama, could you please write how it should be pronounced. Sorry I can't read Hebrew.
Thanks.


			
				Whodunit said:
			
		

> I'd like to know how other languages treat appearences of our galaxy. In German as well as in English we use "*Milchstraße*" and "*Milky Way*", respectively. So, we are referring to the whiteness/milk-like color of the galaxy.
> 
> Thank you.


 
En España decimos "Vía Láctea" y también "Camino de Santiago".


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## Camui

Te ahorro trabajo:

http://users.tkk.fi/~stoivane/milkyway/


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## amikama

diegodbs said:
			
		

> Hi Amikama, could you please write how it should be pronounced. Sorry I can't read Hebrew.
> Thanks.


*שביל החלב* = _shvil ha-chalav_ (ch is pronounced as in Scottish "loch").


I add also Mishnaic Hebrew: *נהר די-נור* (_nehar di-nur_, literally "river of fire").


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## alby

In Croatian is *Mliječna staza*.


Nataša


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## Outsider

We also say *Caminho de Santiago*.


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## cherine

in French : *(la) Voie lactée *(literally : Milky way)


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## Whodunit

Camui said:
			
		

> Te ahorro trabajo:
> 
> http://users.tkk.fi/~stoivane/milkyway/


 
Great. That proves (my theory) that most languages refer to milk as far as our galaxy is concerned.  Thanks for your help.


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## cherine

In Arabic :
*Darb'il-labbaana* درب اللبانة the milky way (though the "labbaana" is a quite a strange word)
and sometimes it's called *darb'it-tibbana* درب التبانة (but i don't know what tibbana means)


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## Islendingurinn

Hi

In Iceland we call it Vetrarbrautin. It would be "the winter way" in english


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## Whodunit

cherine said:
			
		

> In Arabic :
> *Darb'il-labbaana* درب اللبانة the milky way (though the "labbaana" is a quite a strange word)
> and sometimes it's called *darb'it-tibbana* درب التبانة (but i don't know what tibbana means)


 
Interesting that not even you know the meaning of "tibbana". Could it be simply "galaxy"? Btw, Ajeeb.sakhr also suggests "majarra" {مجرة}. What do you think about this?


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## cherine

_Majarra_ is the Arabic word for galaxy (plural majarraat مجرات ). I think the root of the word is g - r - y (=run) (maybe because it's about the way where the stars and planets... run ?)
_Darb_ means road or way.
Remains to find the meaning of tibbaana, but this needs further search. I'll back to this later.

Another more interesting thing : the etymology of the word galaxy itself : galaxy | Search Online Etymology Dictionary


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## MingRaymond

It is 銀河 in Chinese.


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## Ilmo

Finnish:
In Finnish we call it "linnunrata", translated literally "track of bird". But because of the same word "rata" has also the meaning "orbit", it could as well be translated "orbit of bird".
They use the same term even of other galaxies.


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## ALOV

Exactly the same in Dutch: Melkweg (melk= milk ; weg = way)


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## erick

In Japanese, "Amanogawa"
天の川。(Heaven's river)  It can also be written as the Chinese do: 銀河 (Silver river)


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## Roi Marphille

In Catalan: *Via Làctia*.


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## DanTheMan

The milky way is 은하 (un-ha) in Korean, which is derived from the same characters as are used in Chinese.  The characters mean respectively silver and water (or stream).


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## Elieri

*Vintergatan* in swedish, literally "the winter street/path".


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## Whodunit

Thank you all so much.


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## Antonella_C

In russian:

Mlechnii Put

meaning milky path


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## Josh_

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Interesting that not even you know the meaning of "tibbana". Could it be simply "galaxy"? Btw, Ajeeb.sakhr also suggests "majarra" {مجرة}. What do you think about this?


 I was actually going to mention that. The Milky Way can also be translated as *مجرة طريق الحليب*
  (majarrit Tariiq al-Haliib)

Edit:  tibn is chopped straw in Arabic and tabbaan is a straw vendor, so tabbaana (which I don't think is commomly used) would be a female straw vendor.  Maybe it has something to do with that.


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## cherine

Actually, Josh, we never do personal translation for already known common places, names... (for example, we used to call Cote d'Ivoire ساحل العاج saa7il 'l3aaj, which is the Arabic name of that country, but they said they don't want their country's name translated, so we know simply say كوت ديفوار ) Same with the planets, galaxies, .....
As for the word tibbana, it's precisely for its strange meaning that i don't know why it's used (sometimes) instead of al-libbaana.


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## elroy

I do say ساحل العاج.

Same goes for some of the planets: isn't Mercury عطارد (l3uTaared), Saturn زحل (zu7al), Jupiter المشتري (al-mushtari), Mars المريخ (al-marriikh), and Venus الزهرة (az-zahra)?  In fact, the only planets in the solar system besides Earth whose foreign names we use are Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.  Could this be a Palestinian-Egyptian difference?


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## IDEJA

in serbian we say: MLECNI PUT

and in french: voie lactée


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## cherine

elroy said:
			
		

> I do say ساحل العاج.
> 
> Same goes for some of the planets: isn't Mercury عطارد (l3uTaared), Saturn زحل (zu7al), Jupiter المشتري (al-mushtari), Mars المريخ (al-marriikh), and Venus الزهرة (az-zahra)? In fact, the only planets in the solar system besides Earth whose foreign names we use are Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Could this be a Palestinian-Egyptian difference?


 No Elroy, I meant we don't do "PERSONAL" translation. We say 3utaared for Mercury, no one is supposed to come up with a different name (for example _zi2baq زئبق_) to this word. That's what I meant  and this is why Josh's version (tariiq al-7aliib) is not acceptable (not by me, but by anyone) because then people who already know the "accredited" names won't know what he's talking about.
As for Saa7il 'l3aaj, we do say it too, but it's very recently that newspapers stopped writing it this way, and simply transliterate the French word in Arabic letters


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## Garou

Whodunit said:
			
		

> I'd like to know how other languages treat appearences of our galaxy. In German as well as in English we use "*Milchstraße*" and "*Milky Way*", respectively. So, we are referring to the whiteness/milk-like color of the galaxy.
> 
> Thank you.


 
russian:
Млечный Путь [Mlechnyi Put'] - milk+color, same here


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## Whodunit

IDEJA said:
			
		

> in serbian we say: MLECNI PUT


 
What does it mean literally? Judging from Russian, it could mean "Milky Way" indeed. 

Thank you all for your answers. I'm surprised that so many languages refer to milk, others refer to birds and circles. It's interesting that we call our galaxy milky, because aren't most of the galaxies white or light yellow?


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## Thomas1

In Polish:
_Droga Mleczna _which literaly means Milky Way



			
				Whodunit said:
			
		

> It's interesting that we call our galaxy milky, because aren't most of the galaxies white or light yellow?


Maybe it has something to do with the color of milk which is... white


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## Whodunit

Thomas1 said:
			
		

> Maybe it has something to do with the color of milk which is... white


 
Of course, but many galaxies are white.


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## Outsider

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Thank you all for your answers. I'm surprised that so many languages refer to milk, others refer to birds and circles.


Probably due to the influence of Latin and Greek.



			
				Whodunit said:
			
		

> It's interesting that we call our galaxy milky, because aren't most of the galaxies white or light yellow?  [...] many galaxies are white.


For many centuries, the Milky Way was the only known galaxy. I think it was only in the late 19th century or early 20th century that it was established that there were other galaxies. Before that, they were regarded as nebulas.


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## Fernando

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Of course, but many galaxies are white.



As a matter of fact, galaxies< galaktos = milk.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=galaxy&searchmode=none


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## Garou

Whodunit said:
			
		

> What does it mean literally? Judging from Russian, it could mean "Milky Way" indeed.


 
yep, Serbians and Russians are very close nations. There are lot's of common thing in these languages and both nations can understand a big part of their words


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## Thomas1

Just to add some info to what Outsider and Fernando gave; there is a story why Greeks called it "Galaxias Kyklos", which says that they saw it as an enormous tongues of split milk. Here is the whole story (the site includes links to tales about the origin of Milky Way name in different cultures too). 

Who would think, it seems that it all goes down to some kind of a myth 

Thomas


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## doodoo11

DanTheMan said:
			
		

> The milky way is 은하 (un-ha) in Korean, which is derived from the same characters as are used in Chinese. The characters mean respectively silver and water (or stream).


 
Wouldn't milky way be 우리 은하 (u-ri un-ha)? I thought 은하 just meant any galaxy in general?


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## badgrammar

In Turkish, I think it is "sütlü yol", or maybe "sütlü yolu", which means the milky path or paths.  But that might be colloquial, because when I looked up "Milky way", I found "samanyolu".  Saman means something like straw....


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## macta123

In Hindi
Aakash Ganga


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## trollmann

Melkeveien in Norwegian (very similar to English).


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## papillon

I just discovered this thread, and would like to add the Ukrainian name:
чумацький шлях (_chumatskiy shlah_). This seems to be an exception from the general milky origin of the name in most languages mentioned so far, particularly Slavic, and likens our galaxy to a trail of spilled salt.
There is a related thread in the Slavic Forum.

Chumackiy: pertaining to chumaki, historical: traders in salt and fish in Ukraine and Soth Russian
Shlah (last h pronounced similar to German Da*ch*) - Route, way

So literally - the Route of the Salt Traders


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## deine

Lithuanian:

Paukščių takas (literally: bird's way)


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## tolmachka

Belarusian:
mlechny shliah.


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## Gaeza

Hungarian - Tejút (teh-yoot), milk-way. Not very imaginative.


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## Trisia

*Romanian: Calea Lactee *
(Milky Way, yes)


I remember reading as a child the story when Hera is asleep and Hermes stealthily puts baby Hercules at her breast so he could drink immortality along with the goddess' milk. She wakes up after a little while, sees what has happened and pushes the baby away in a rage. That's when numerous drops of milk scatter in the air and form the Milky Way.

Here's a link to other myths regarding the origin of the Milky Way.


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## Nizo

*Esperanto*:
_Laktovojo_ or _Lakta Vojo_ = Milky Way


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## biankita

In Filipino (Tagalog), it's called _pangkalawakan_ -- technically, this means (outer) space. There's is no Tagalog equivalent for the Milky Way.


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## alex.raf

*Persian:*
Rāheh Shiri راه شیری
This means exactly as English Milky Way. I think it's been translated from French or English.


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## ukuca

badgrammar said:


> In Turkish, I think it is "sütlü yol", or maybe "sütlü yolu", which means the milky path or paths.  But that might be colloquial, because when I looked up "Milky way", I found "samanyolu".  Saman means something like straw....



In fact it's really called "samanyolu" in Turkish; Samanyolu galaksisi.


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## astlanda

Estonian: "linnutee" means "bird's path" ~ the finnish "linnunrata" was mentioned above

there are similar combinations "bird's path" or "crane's path" in other Uralic languages

and I found several "milky way" lists in www when I googled


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## apmoy70

Greek:

*«Γαλαξίας»* [ɣalaˈk͡si.as] (masc.) --> _Galaxy, Milky Way_ < Classical masc. *«Γαλαξίᾱς» Gălăk͡síās* & *«Γαλακτίᾱς» Gălăktíās* (idem) < Classical 3rd declension neut. noun *«γάλα» gắlă* (nom. sing.), *«γάλατος/γάλακτος» gắlatŏs* or *gắlaktŏs* (gen. sing.) --> _milk_ (PIE *glkt- _milk_ cf Lat. lac, Arm. կաթ (katʼ)).


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## ilocas2

alby said:


> In Croatian is *Mliječna staza*.


Mliječni put – Wikipedija

*Mliječna staza* - Milky path
*Mliječni put* - Milky way
*Kumova slama* - Godfather's straw
*Slamotres* - Strawshake
*Rimska cesta* - Roman road
*Marijina kruna* - Mary's crown


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## Ífaradà

In Yorùbá there are three translations:

*Ọlọ́mọ yọyọ* - the owner or head of a group of chickens; the galaxy being the mother of all her stars. (This translation makes the most sense in Yorùbá cosmology).

*Ọna miliki [wàrà]* - lit. the milky way. (This is a literal translation)

*Ìṣùpọ̀ ìràwọ̀ onírìísí wàrà* - lit. The main group of stars or constellation with a milk-like shape.


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## L'irlandais

Irish/Gaeilge. _*Bealach na Bó Finne*,_ which means the Way of the White Cow
Background:
Mythical Ireland blog: The Milky Way in Irish mythology and folklore


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## Kotlas

Antonella_C said:


> In Russian:
> Mlechnii Put
> meaning milky path


Strictly speaking, it means _Milky Way_, not Milky Path.

But what's interesting is that Russian uses an archaic term for "milky" while most languages have their current term in this expression.
_Milky_ in modern Russian is молочный [mo'lochnyy] derived from молоко [molo'ko] - milk. Here's one little example:
Between 1958 and 1993, The Milk Race was the most prestigious cycling event in the British calendar, and in Russian mass media it was called  Молочный тур [mo'lochnyy tur].
But with the Milky Way (the galaxy), Russian uses the term млечный ['mlechnyy] derived from млеко ['mleko], the archaic term for _milk_.


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