# Fish (animal / flesh)



## Dymn

Hi,

In Spanish, there's a difference between _pez _(the animal) and _pescado _(the flesh coming from the animal). So _voy a comprar un pez _could mean "I'm going to buy a fish - as a pet", while _voy a comprar pescado _means that you're going to buy fish to eat it. Obviously, they share the same root, _pescado _means "fished" (_pescar_: "to fish").

How about your language?

In Catalan we use _peix _for both, and as far as I know there's no difference either in English.


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## DaylightDelight

Japanese:
We don't generally distinguish the animal and the flesh.  We say <animal>-flesh if necessary, but we even omit that if the context is clear enough.
- Watashi wa *sakana* wo taberu. = I eat fish.
- Watashi wa *sakana* wo katteiru. = I keep a fish as a pet.

The same goes with most edible animals: cow, pig, chicken, deer, sheep, etc.


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## apmoy70

Classical Greek did distinguish between the animal and its flesh (as a dish):

Animal: 3rd declension masc. noun *«ἰχθῡ́ς» ĭkʰtʰū́s* (nom. sing.), *«ἰχθύος» ĭkʰtʰúŏs* (gen. sing.) --> _fish_ (PIE *dǵʰuH- _fish_ cf Arm. ձուկ (juk), Latv. zivs, Lith. žuvis).
Flesh: Neuter noun *«ὄψον» óp͡sŏn* --> lit. _side-dish_, especially _meat_, but in Athens and other places, _fish_ > Koine neut. diminutive *«ὀψάριον» ŏp͡sắriŏn* --> _fish side-dish _(PIE *h₁op-s- _nominalised adverb, thematised from_ *«*ὄψ-» *óp͡s-* > *«ὀψέ» ŏp͡sé*).
The «ὄψον» was a supplementary dish, which was always eaten on top of e.g. grain or bread. The Koine diminutive «ὀψάριον» described mostly pickled fish enjoyed as a delicacy.
E.g:
(A) *«Οἱ ἰχθύες» hoi̯ ĭkʰtʰúĕs* (masc. nom. pl.) --> _The fish-market_.
(B) *«Ἔσθιον ἄρτον τε καὶ ὄψον» éstʰiŏn ắrtŏn tĕ kaì̯ óp͡sŏn* --> _I ate bread and (one) fish_.

In Modern Greek the two have converged into one word for both the animal and its flesh:

Neuter noun *«ψάρι»* [ˈp͡saɾi] (nom. sing.), *«ψάρια»* [ˈp͡saɾ͡ʝa] (nom. pl.) --> _fish, fishes_, aphetic of Byz.Gr. neut. diminutive *«ὀψάριον» op͡sárion*.
Ε.g:
(A) *«Η ψαραγορά»* [i p͡saɾaɣoˈɾa] (fem. nom. sing.) --> _The fish-market_.
(B) *«Χθες έφαγα ψάρι»* [xθes ˈefaɣa p͡saɾi] --> _I ate fish yesterday_.


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## Encolpius

DaylightDelight said:


> Japanese:
> We don't generally distinguish the animal and the flesh.  We say <animal>-flesh if necessary, but we even omit that if the context is clear enough.
> - Watashi wa *sakana* wo taberu. = I eat fish.
> - Watashi wa *sakana* wo katteiru. = I keep a fish as a pet.
> 
> The same goes with most edible animals: cow, pig, chicken, deer, sheep, etc.



And do you use the same measure word? (I ate two fish. I keep two fish as a pet)


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## Awwal12

Diamant7 said:


> How about your language?


Basically there is no difference in Russian (рыба). Russian somewhat contrasts fishes as animals and fish as food (not necessary flesh), though. Fish as the food is innumerable (much like in English), and if you speak about several fishes you ate , you'll very likely use its derivate "рыбина" (where suffix -in- stresses the singularity of the object); the use of this word towards a live fish is less likely - the fish must be particularly big (-in- also works as an augmentative suffix).
Regarding aquarium fishes, the word "рыбка" (little fish, with the diminutive -k- suffix) is frequently used for natural reasons.


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## DaylightDelight

Encolpius said:


> And do you use the same measure word? (I ate two fish. I keep two fish as a pet)


Yes.  Fish is counted with the counter word 'hiki' (or it's phonetical variation).
One fish = ippiki (ichi+hiki), Two fish = ni-hiki, three fish = san-biki, etc.


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## Nino83

No difference in Italian: 
_Ho mangiato un pesce. 
Ho un pesce._


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## jazyk

Same word in Portuguese, peixe, but pescado also exists. The latter doesn't seem to be used in speech, but I've seen it used by people whose lives revolve around marketing fish.


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## Ectab

Arabic also uses the same word
سأقتني سمكة Sa-'aqtaniy samaka(tan) : I will buy a fish (as a pet)
سأشتري سمكة Sa-'ashtariy samaka(tan) : I will but a fish (to eat it)


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## Armas

Finnish uses the same word: _kala._


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## amikama

Hebrew doesn't distinguish between the animal and the flesh.

אקנה *דג *= voy a comprar un pez/pescado.


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## ger4

German doesn't make this distinction either: _Fisch_ means both. The only difference I can think of is the fact that the word is normally treated as an uncountable noun when we associate it with food.

_ein Fisch_ 'a fish' (indefinite, singular)
_der Fisch_ 'the fish' (definite, singular)
_Fische_ 'fish' (indefinite, plural)
_die Fische_ 'the fish' (definite, plural)
_Fisch_ 'fish' (uncountable)


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## spindlemoss

Welsh usually makes the distinction between animal and meat in other commonly eaten animals, but not fish. It does differentiate between singular and plural, however, unlike English.

*Mae pysgod a sglodion 'da nhw*  (They've got fish (plural) and chips)

*Mae pysgodyn a sglodion 'da fi hefyd*  (I've got fish (singular) and chips too)


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## Nawaq

same word in *French*,_ poisson_.


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## Gavril

Polish seems to use _*ryby*_ (cognate with the other Slavic "fish" words, like Slovene _riba_, etc.) for both the animal and the edible dish. However, Polish also has the words _*dzwono*_ / _*dzwonko*_ "slice of fish", though they may not be very common nowadays (I don't know enough about Polish to say for sure).

The aforementioned _dzwon_- words may be from IE *_dhghu_- "fish", as seen in Greek _ikhthús_, Lithuanian _žuvis _"fish", etc.


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## Gavril

Gavril said:


> Polish seems to use _*ryby*_ (cognate with the other Slavic "fish" words, like Slovene _riba_, etc.) for both the animal and the edible dish.



Apologies, this should be _*ryba*_ (nominative sg.).


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## mataripis

Almost all Pilipinos used Isda to describe the flesh and the animal itself. But the old Tagalog people used Ista' for cooked fish( lutong ista') and fresh fish(sariwang ista') .the pet fish is alagang isda.


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## Wilma_Sweden

In Swedish we use the same word - fisk - but it's usually in singular/uncountable for food and in singular or plural/countable for the animal, be it in the ocean or in the fish tank at home - they're regarded as individual specimens. Professional fishermen catch fish in singular while recreational fishermen/anglers catch one fish at a time, or several fishes in a day.


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## 123xyz

In Macedonian, the same word, namely "риба", is used for both the animal and the flesh, except that it's uncountable in the second sense. However, if you're not referring to the flesh as a substance but to individual fish you're eating, then it is naturally countable again. If you want to disambiguate, you can use "рибјо месо" for the flesh; you would do so in the same contexts in which you would say "fish meat/flesh" in English rather than just "fish", I suppose.


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## Floridsdorfer

This difference like in Spanish doesn't exist in any other romance language for sure.
You already mentioned Italian, French, Portuguese and Catalan, I can add *Romanian *(the only word is *pește*), *Sardinian *(just pische), *Sassarese*/*Gallurese *(pesciu), *Corsican *is also like that, and so on...

Apart from romance languages, I can also mention Serbian/Croatian, which has only the word *ryba*.

Anyways, the translation of *pescado *does exist in most of the romance languages, even if not in all, that I know. 
Someone said before that in *Portuguese *it is also* o pescado*, in Italian it is *il pescato*, in Sardinian *su piscau*.
But you simply don't use that so much and in such a way as in Spanish, just that.


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## Sardokan1.0

Floridsdorfer said:


> in Sardinian *su piscau*.



*su piscadu* in Logudorese

saludos!


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## Floridsdorfer

Sardokan1.0 said:


> *su piscadu* in Logudorese
> 
> saludos!



Sure! 

Saludos!


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## 123xyz

> I can also mention Serbian/Croatian, which has only the word *ryba*.



It is in fact "riba" ("риба" in the Cyrillic).


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## Gavril

spindlemoss said:


> Welsh usually makes the distinction between animal and meat in other commonly eaten animals, but not fish. It does differentiate between singular and plural, however, unlike English.
> 
> *Mae pysgod a sglodion 'da nhw*  (They've got fish (plural) and chips)
> 
> *Mae pysgodyn a sglodion 'da fi hefyd*  (I've got fish (singular) and chips too)



It's interesting that _pysgod _comes from Latin _piscātus _("fished"), the source of Spanish _pescado_.

Welsh also has the term _pysg_ "fish", which now seems to be rare or archaic, but which comes directly from Lat. _piscis _"fish".

Perhaps there was once a distinction between _pysg _/_ pysgod_ that paralleled (at least roughly) the Spanish _pez_ / _pescado_ distinction? Some dictionaries that have both pysg and pysgod mention a specific "food" meaning for the latter word, but not for the former.


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## spindlemoss

Gavril said:


> Perhaps there was once a distinction between _pysg _/_ pysgod_ that paralleled (at least roughly) the Spanish _pez_ / _pescado_ distinction? Some dictionaries that have both pysg and pysgod mention a specific "food" meaning for the latter word, but not for the former.



I don't know. GPC says _pysg_ could mean either _pysgod_ or _pysgodyn _but the earliest citations it has for it seem to refer to it as both animal and food. They only go back to the 13th (possibly 12th) century though.

Perhaps Welsh developed separate terms for animal (e.g. _oen_ "lamb") and meat (_cig oen_ "lamb meat") for larger animals only as an individual tends not to consume a whole lamb or pig in one go (_oen_) but just some of it (some _cig oen_). However, smaller creatures like fish or shellfish can be served and eaten whole.

Alternatively, I know for a long time fish weren't considered "meat" like larger land animals were, so perhaps that's why terms like *_cig pysgod_ "fish meat" were never used.

But hey, what do I know?


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## Floridsdorfer

123xyz said:


> It is in fact "riba" ("риба" in the Cyrillic).



You are right! (there is of course no _y_ in Serbian/Croatian, I am not 100% sure but maybe there is just in Polish between the Slavic languages...). It was a confusion, sorry ; )


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## Nino83

In Italian "il pescato" is a sort of "collective" noun, i.e it means the quantity of fish caught by one or more fishermen, or the product of fishing, in general. 
pescato in Vocabolario - Treccani 
We don't say "ho mangiato due pescati". 
It's similar to "raccolto" (crop, harvest), i.e it's the product of an activity. 


Diamant7 said:


> while _voy a comprar *pescado* _means that you're going to buy fish to eat it.


How does one say in Spanish "Yesterday I ate two fish"? "Ayer comí dos pescados"?


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## Floridsdorfer

Sure, that is what I meant about Italian and other romance languages and yes, this is exactly how you say that in Spanish.


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## Nino83

Thank you, Floridsdorfer.


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## ilocas2

I think that Spanish _pescado_ is nothing more than substantivized past participle of verb _pescar_ that broadened its meaning.

......................

Czech: *ryba* for both


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## WyomingSue

In English there is no difference for the two kinds of fish. However a different living animal is a deer, while the package in your freezer is venison.
Also a cow produces beef. A pig produces pork.


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## Xavier61

Nino83 said:


> In Italian "il pescato" is a sort of "collective" noun, i.e it means the quantity of fish caught by one or more fishermen, or the product of fishing, in general.
> pescato in Vocabolario - Treccani
> We don't say "ho mangiato due pescati".
> It's similar to "raccolto" (crop, harvest), i.e it's the product of an activity.
> 
> How does one say in Spanish "Yesterday I ate two fish"? "Ayer comí dos pescados"?


It doesn't sound natural. I'd say: "Ayer solo comí dos sardinas", " ayer comi bastante pescado: una lubina y una dorada", "fuimos a la playa toda la familia y nos comimos dos pargos, cuatro salmonetes y 12 sardinas"., etc. In the Bible, "Jesus hizo el milagro de los panes y los peces", not "los pescados". For me, "pescado" as a food is mostly uncountable, with some exceptions.


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## ThomasK

No distinction in Dutch is far as I can see...


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## Red Arrow

The Dutch word for it is "vis". I think it is the only animal word that can be uncountable when you're not talking about food.


Floridsdorfer said:


> You are right! (there is of course no _y_ in Serbian/Croatian, I am not 100% sure but maybe there is just in Polish between the Slavic languages...). It was a confusion, sorry ; )


Czech and Slovak also use y.


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## Floridsdorfer

Xavier61 said:


> It doesn't sound natural. I'd say: "Ayer solo comí dos sardinas", " ayer comi bastante pescado: una lubina y una dorada", "fuimos a la playa toda la familia y nos comimos dos pargos, cuatro salmonetes y 12 sardinas"., etc. In the Bible, "Jesus hizo el milagro de los panes y los peces", not "los pescados". For me, "pescado" as a food is mostly uncountable, with some exceptions.



Yes that is right, it is like that. In general, it is strange indeed to say "ayer comí dos pescados".
But that is so not just in Spanish, by far, also in Italian it sounds weird to say "ieri ho mangiato due pesci", and exactly so in other languages too. This name, even if it is not _technically _uncountable, tends to be more or less uncountable in a lot of languages.
It is more natural to say _ayer comí pescado_, _ieri ho mangiato pesce_, _ontem comi peixe_, etc.
Even in English, theoretically you can say "I ate two fishes" (if they are two different species, for example, it is totally correct), but generally you don't say like that.
Nevertheless, if the question is how would someone exactly say _I ate two fish(es)_, then in Spanish it is_ comí __dos pescados_, and not "peces" like in other languages (unless they are alive in water...). I guess the question was merely about that.


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