# Christmas



## Lars H

Hej!

I am not sure whether this should be a "All languages" or an "EHL" thread, but I start off here.

The coming holiday bears many different meanings of names. From Western Europe I know of four different names - or groups of names - for Christmas:

*Christmas *(English; The Christ mass)
*Jul*/*Joulua *(Scandinavian + Finnish; after the pagan Germanic winter holiday)
*Noël*/*Navidad*/*Natale *(Latin languages; meaning "birth" (of Christ))
*Weinacht *(German, meaning holy night?)

Are there more meanings than these four? In the Slavic languages? Hungarian? Greek? Turkish? Irish? Or in other languages?


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## ilocas2

Lars H said:


> *Weinacht *(German, meaning holy night?)



Actually, it's *Weihnachten*

Czech: Vánoce - from German (nacht = noc)

Slovak: Vianoce - the same


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## Orlin

In Bulgaria the popular name of the holiday is Коледа, whose etymology I unfortunately don't know, and Рождество Христово (Christ's birth) is also used but sounds religious or very formal.


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## Lars H

Orlin said:


> In Bulgaria the popular name of the holiday is Коледа, whose etymology I unfortunately don't know, and Рождество Христово (Christ's birth) is also used but sounds religious or very formal.



Thank you. 

I googled "koleda" in Latin letters and found some information. There seems to be a few different explanations about the origin of the word, but they are all uncertain.


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## Lars H

ilocas2 said:


> Actually, it's *Weihnachten*



Absolutely correct, plural. It was not one night, but a period of nights. As in English _Yuletide_, I guess.

In Scandinavia we still speak about _julmånad _(Christmas month), originally from December 13 (S:t Lucy) to January 13 (S:t Canute).


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## Favara

Catalan:
_Nadal_ - from Latin _natale_, "(day) of birth". Same as the English adjective "natal", but used as a substantive.
I predict all Romance languages will use an extremely similar word. As usual.


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## Frank78

Well, both are fine: Weihnacht (usually only the night of the 24th) and Weihnachten (the whole feast)

Weihnacht(en) means "hallow night".


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## ilocas2

Frank78 said:


> Well, both are fine: Weihnacht (usually only the night of the 24th) and Weihnachten (the whole feast)
> 
> Weihnacht(en) means "hallow night".



Thank you for correction !

So, for clarification:

Czech: Vánoce, Slovak: Vianoce - mean litterally nothing, "noce" mean "nights", so it could be translated the best as "Vanights" or "Vianights" respectively, and it's plurale tantum, and it means the whole feast.


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## ThomasK

Unfortunately nothing interesting about the word in Dutch: _*Kerstmis*_, just like Xmas. 

But there is a funny metathesis in the word: _Chri_- > _ker_ (as in _kerstenen_, to convert to Christianity). Normally 'Christ' is _Christus_ in Dutch, not *_Kerst_ or something the like.


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## apmoy70

In Greek:
«Χριστούγεννα»
xri'stuʝena, lit. "Christ's nativity"
In Greece (and if I'm not mistaken in every Orthodox country) the period from Christmas (December 25) - Theophany (January 6) is called «δωδεκαήμερο» (ðoðeka'imero) lit "twelve-day-period" (I think it's called Christmastide in the West)

[ð] is a voiced dental non-sibilant fricative
[x] is a voiceless velar fricative, known as the hard ch
[ʝ] is a voiced palatal fricative


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## rusita preciosa

Orlin said:


> In Bulgaria the popular name of the holiday is Коледа, whose etymology I unfortunately don't know, and Рождество Христово (Christ's birth) is also used but sounds religious or very formal.


In Russian, like in Bulgarian, it is *Рождество Христово* /rojdestvo khristovo/ (Christ's birth). Informally, we just say Рождество

(the word Коледа is not used at all).


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## Lars H

rusita preciosa said:


> So, in Greece they celebrate Christmas by the Gregorian rather than Julian calendar then? I thought for some reason that Orthodox religions celebrate it on Jan-7, like in Russia...
> (live and learn!)



The Julian calendar was used in Sweden until 1753. I think that before that year, Christmas Day was also celebrated December 25, at that point corresponding to January 5 in the Gregorian calendar. The difference was only 11 days at that time.


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## Orlin

apmoy70 said:


> In Greek:
> «Χριστούγεννα»
> xri'stuʝena, lit. "Christ's nativity"
> In Greece (and if I'm not mistaken in every Orthodox country) the period from Christmas (December 25) - Theophany (January 6) is called «δωδεκαήμερο» (ðoðeka'imero) lit "twelve-day-period" (I think it's called Christmastide in the West)
> 
> [ð] is a voiced dental non-sibilant fricative
> [x] is a voiceless velar fricative, known as the hard ch
> [ʝ] is a voiced palatal fricative


Little off-topic: some Orthodox churches (incl. Bulgarian, Greek and Romanian) adopted the revised Julian calendar (created by Milanković: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milutin_Milankovi%C4%87) in the 20th century, which will be identical to Gregorian till 28 Feb. 2800 and Christmas will be on Gregorian 25 Dec. till 2799. Other Orthodox churches still use the old Julian calendar and Christmas will be celebrated on Gregorian 7 Jan. till 2099.


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## rusita preciosa

Thank you everyone for clarification.
Sorry got the off-top, Lars H


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## Yulan

Hello everybody,

Yes, you already specified it: in Italian we say "*Natale*" from "dies natalis" (i.e., "_giorno natale_" in Latin) the day of your birth; 

"Il Natale" (di Gesù) the day Jesus was born. 

Ciao


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## Lars H

rusita preciosa said:


> Thank you everyone for clarification.
> Sorry got the off-top, Lars H



Close enough - and very interesting


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## Selyd

Orlin said:


> In Bulgaria the popular name of the holiday is Коледа, whose etymology I unfortunately don't know, and Рождество Христово (Christ's birth) is also used but sounds religious or very formal.


 Excuse, I shall add.
In Ukrainian *Різдво */rizdvo/* -* Speak occurs from *Birth from two. *The year is born.
*Коляда** /*kolyada*/* - creating a circle (year) .


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## Lars H

Selyd said:


> *Коляда** /*kolyada*/* - creating a circle (year) .



"Creating a circle" gives us a fifth meaning, apart from "Christ mass", "birth", "holy night(s)" and "Jul" (which is yet to be interpreted).

Thank you very much, Selyd and all others


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## Selyd

Lars H said:


> "Creating a circle" gives us a fifth meaning, apart from "Christ mass", "birth", "holy night(s)" and "Jul" (which is yet to be interpreted).
> Thank you very much, Selyd and all others


If it is interesting, there is from Ukrainian "*Коло дій*" _Who makes a circle._


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## itreius

Croatian

Božić > diminutive of the word _bog_ which means _god_


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## bibax

_"Who makes a circle"_ is a sorcerer (in Czech _koloděj_).

I doubt it is the correct etymology of Коляда (Xmas) or koleda (caroll).


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## Maroseika

Selyd said:


> If it is interesting, there is from Ukrainian "*Коло дій*" _Who makes a circle._



This is just a folk etymology. 
_Коляда _is from Latin _calendae _(cf. Polish _kolęda _with nazal consonant) (Vasmer). 

As for the Ukrainian _рiздво_, it is a cognat of Russian _рождество: _рожьство > розство > розтво > рiздво (read as рiзтво) (Етимологiчний словник українскої мови).


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## Rallino

We obviously don't have it in Turkey, but we use the French word _noël _without the tréma (umlaut) --> *noel*.


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## Agró

*Basque*: _Eguberri_ (from _egun_ 'day' and _berri_ 'new').


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## Lars H

Perhaps I was too fast to draw conclusions regarding the origin of _Коляда/Колeда/Koleda_, but no explanation for this word points towards a meaning like Christmas/Noël/Jul/Weinacht. So, there are still at least five different meanings.



Agró said:


> *Basque*: _Eguberri_ (from _egun_ 'day' and _berri_ 'new').



To the previous five we can add a sixth meaning, _new day_ in Basque.



> Božić > diminutive of the word bog which means god



The Croatian meaning is not all that far from the meaning of English _Christ_, without the -_mas_, of course.


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## Maroseika

Lars H said:


> "Creating a circle" gives us a fifth meaning


Let me remind you, this meaning is wrong.


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## Lars H

Maroseika said:


> Let me remind you, this meaning is wrong.



I got that, but since Коляда doesn't seem to mean neither "birth", "Christ", "holy night" nor be the equivalent of "jul", it bears still another meaning than these four.

Russian Wikipedia presents two alternative interpretations of _Коляда_, while English Wikipedia, for what it is worth, mentions no less than five different suggestions for interpretation of _koleda_. 

_Calenda_ makes good sense to me and I have no reason to doubt it, but I hope you will agree with me if I say that _Calenda _isn't completely undisputed.


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## bibax

Romanian: *Crăciun*ul (-ul _def. article_, also *Naşterea Domnului*)

Hungarian: *Karácsony*

Etymology is not clear, probably from Latin _creatio_ (VL *creatiun), maybe via Slavic _Kračun_ (a pagan feast of the winter solstice, also probably from Latin creatio).


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## Orlin

itreius said:


> Croatian
> 
> Božić > diminutive of the word _bog_ which means _god_


The word is the same in Bosnian & Serbian.


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## Maroseika

Lars H said:


> I got that, but since Коляда doesn't seem to mean neither "birth", "Christ", "holy night" nor be the equivalent of "jul", it bears still another meaning than these four.
> 
> Russian Wikipedia presents two alternative interpretations of _Коляда_, while English Wikipedia, for what it is worth, mentions no less than five different suggestions for interpretation of _koleda_.
> 
> _Calenda_ makes good sense to me and I have no reason to doubt it, but I hope you will agree with me if I say that _Calenda _isn't completely undisputed.


Well, I'm not the etymologist, but arguments of Max Vasmer seem to me much more reasonable and logical than any others. At least the first version in Russian Wikipedia was absolutely absurd. By the way, where in English Wikipedia you found 5 interpretation of this word _koleda_? I failed to find any.
However anyway you are right, this is really the "fifth" meaning.


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## Lars H

Maroseika said:


> By the way, where in English Wikipedia you found 5 interpretation of this word _koleda_? I failed to find any.



"Some suppose the word was borrowed the word from the Latin calendae [1]; compare "Kalends". 
Others believe it derived from Kolo, "wheel". 
Another speculation is that it derived from the Bulgarian/Macedonian word "коля/колам" (kolia/kolam), which means "to rip, to kill (a man), to cut animal for eating"
or from the Serbian "коло, колодар" (kolo, kolodar)
Some claim it was named after Kolyada, the Slavic god of winter [2]."

Since I have very little knowledge of the Slavic family of languages, You can see why I got confused over this word 

I must admit that for a sec I got stuck with the wheel idea. Sw. "jul" sounds exactly like "hjul" (h not pronounced) meaning wheel. But these two words are false friends, they do not share roots...


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## allefm

Latvian: Ziemassvētki (winterfest).


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## elirlandes

Irish - *Nollaig*, from the old Irish Notlaic, from Latin Natalicia (Birth celebration).

Breton (Nedeleg) and Welsh (Nadolig) appear to have a similar genesis.


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## sakvaka

Lars H said:


> *Jul*/*Joulua *(Scandinavian + Finnish)



"Joulua" is in the partitive case. "Joulu" is the basic form, that is, the nominative.


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## OneStroke

Chinese: 聖誕 - lit. birth of saint


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## civ

Orlin said:


> In Bulgaria the popular name of the holiday is Коледа, whose etymology I unfortunately don't know, and Рождество Христово (Christ's birth) is also used but sounds religious or very formal.


"Коледа" comes from "коля" - which means: "to kill an animal, to chop it up into meat cuts/all sorts of sausages etc"... Families have been gathering for centuries every year to feast and kill livestock during the winter for far longer then there has been Christmas (you could only make sausages etc during winter/christmas time).  So i would say that the event itself/the gathering was called Коледа and it was simply easier to say then Рождество Христово and came to mean the same at some point.


Also Рождество Христово isnt "very" formal, its the proper name for Christmas... plenty of ppl greet on the streets and at home with it, Коледа is just easier to say/write for lazy ppl and is meant as a more festive/cheerful version of the two (kinda ironic considering it implies slaughtering animals, but also the feast/party afterwords so its a valid point i guess).


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