# cellphone (cellular/cell phone), mobile phone



## Ilmo

Which languages have derived the word for the popular gadget mentioned from the same base as those and are there other languages, like the Finnish, that have created quite new word for it?
In Finnish, the cellular phone is called "*kännykkä*" which was originally a slang word but now generally accepted. It is a kind of abreviation of the concept "hand-held phone". The official term still is "*matkapuhelin*", that is "travelling telephone".


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## marinax

in argentina we may call it "telefono celular" (cell phone) or just "celular", and in some cases "telefono movil" (mobile phone).
at first, we used to call it "movicom" (r), that was the first well known service provider.


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## Outsider

In Portugal, the most used term is _telemóvel_, which clearly derived from "mobile phone". I have heard the term _telefone celular_, or simply _celular_, as well.


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## Wintermoon

In Spain we just call it "móvil", as it comes from "teléfono móvil"


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## Agnès E.

In French, we use *téléphone mobile* (or just *mobile*) or *téléphone portable* (or just *portable*). But as the latter can be mixed up with a laptop (ordinateur portable/portable), we better use the first one.


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## MingRaymond

Hi,
We use '手提電話' in Hong Kong. This means'hand-held phone' literally.
In Mainland China, it is '手機'. This means' hand machine' literally.

Ming


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## Whodunit

In German, it's a bit funny ... because we created a new pseudo-English word for it. The word is "*Handy*", which is from English "handy", although you can't use that in English to refer to a cell phone. Here's the story. 

Other variants:

Mobiltelefon
Funktelefon


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## alc112

marinax said:
			
		

> in argentina we may call it "telefono celular" (cell phone) or just "celular", and in some cases "telefono movil" (mobile phone).
> at first, we used to call it "movicom" (r), that was the first well known service provider.


 
And now we call them with the name of the moble phone company.
so you have a "cti", a "personal" or a "movistar"


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## Godfather

Swiss-German: Natel


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## al-sirbi

Serbian : *мобилни телефон* /mobilni telefon/ or just *мобилни */mobilni/
(mobile telephone)
Turkish : *cep telefonu* /jep telefonu/ (pocket telephone)


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## Islendingurinn

here in Iceland most people call it "Gemsi", that´s short for "gsm" wich is Abbreviation for "farsími" or somthing like that


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## Roi Marphille

In Catalan we just say "mòbil" which is a short for "telèfon mòbil".


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## Jana337

Like in Catalan, in Czech the expression "mobilní telefon" degenerated into a widely used "mobil".

Jana


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## Tino_no

Mexican spanish: Celular.
Saludos!


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## KingSix

The two most used words to describe a cellular in Dutch are:
- In Flanders: een gsm (short for global system for communications)
- In Holland: een mobieltje (the same as "a mobile")


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## alby

In Croatian is *mobilni telefon *but everyone use word *mobitel*


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## showerbabies

cantonese = "s-ow thai dean wah"


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## TimeHP

In Italy we use _cellulare _or_ telefonino._
And we use it a lot: it seems Italy is the country in which there is the greatest numer of people owning a cell. 
A guinness I don't particularly like...
Ciao


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## Dalian

In Mainland China, apart from 手机 (shou ji) mentioned in Ming's post, a more formal version is 移动电话 (yi dong dian hua), which literally means 'mobile phone'.

Dalian


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## amikama

Hebrew:
*טלפון נייד* (_telefon nayad_) - mobile phone
*טלפון סלולרי* (_telefon selulari_) - cellular phone


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## nestornev

In Greek we say " κινητό" (kinitó).


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## goll

in Jordan people call it "mobile" or "khalawy / '7alawy " which means Cellular.

in the Gulf countries people call it "Jawal" I guess it comes from the verb "tajjawl" "to travel" meaning you can travel and keep the mobile with you


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## jimreilly

my Norwegian friends have given me their "mobil telefon" numbers, and have spoken to me using just "mobil"


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## frequency

In Japanese, _keitai denwa / 携帯電話..._ this keitai means handy/portable not mobile/cellular.
But what's the difference between mobile phone and cellular phone? I don't know which is better. Thanks in advance


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## Ilmo

frequency said:
			
		

> In Japanese, _keitai denwa / 携帯電話..._ this keitai means handy/portable not mobile/cellular.
> But what's the difference between mobile phone and cellular phone? I don't know which is better. Thanks in advance


 
"Mobile" means that you can "move" your phone, that is, take it along. "Cellular" comes from the fact that the radio net is made of "cells" and your phone is all the time connected to one of them and at the same time trying to find a better connection. That has nothing to do with how the user can use his phone.
It is interesting to find out that there are clearly to main categories of naming it, that of mobile/cellular phone and that of handy/portable/pocket phone.


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## Brioche

In Australia "mobile phone" or just "mobile"

We know from US movies/tv that they call them 'cell phones',
 but we don't use that expression.


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## Agnès E.

Actually, they are not any longer cellular. This technology has disappeared. Hence a wider use of _mobile_.


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## frequency

Thank you Ilmo, Brioche, Agnès!
Calling it as cellular or mobile phone is kind of complicated.
Actually it seems how you call that small, wireless phone depends on each country and each company.

But it's strange that it hasn't been defined the international standard name yet in spite of world-wide product.


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## Ilmo

frequency said:
			
		

> Thank you Ilmo, Brioche, Agnès!
> Calling it as cellular or mobile phone is kind of complicated.
> Actually it seems how you call that small, wireless phone depends on each country and each company.
> 
> But it's strange that it haven't been defined the international standard name yet in spite of world-wide product.


 
What about naming them "nokias". This is only a proposal made by a patriotic Finn.


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## gorilla

In Hungarian we call it "mobiltelefon" formally but everyone says simply "mobil" or "telefon" or "teló" or "telcsi"...


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## stargazer

In Slovenian, a technical term would be "prenosni telefon" (meaning the same as "mobile phone"), or "mobilni telefon", but it is commonly referred to as "mobitel" (which is a blend of the previously mentioned expression), and even more commonly it is referred to as "mobi".


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## Milla

CHILE : "celular" mostly 
Slang : "celu" , "cel"

With this post I fell like i was at the ONU !!! jijiji


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## cyanista

I've just found a cool online-dictionary that gives  translations of "cell phone"  into 70 or so languages.  

And if you want to hear it said in Japanese or Afrikaans, just go ahead! 

Enjoy!


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## Pivra

In Thai it is 

โทรศัพท์มือถือ   = Torasap Meau Teau


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## Ayazid

In Czech we say "mobil" which is an abbreviation of (less used) "mobilní telefon".


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## laurahya

In the UK it's a "mobile phone" or "mobile", but often when referring to it in speech people will just say "phone", as in, _I'll have my phone with me if you need to call_. It's understood that you're not going to rip your land line out of the wall and take it with you


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## Chazzwozzer

al-sarbi said:


> Serbian : *мобилни телефон* /mobilni telefon/ or just *мобилни */mobilni/
> (mobile telephone)
> Turkish : *cep telefonu* /jep telefonu/ (pocket telephone)



Or, shorty: *cep*.


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## Conchita57

French: portable

German: Handy

In Spain, it's usually called "móvil", which is short for "teléfono móvil".

Edit: Oops, I've only just realised that my post is totally useless  -- I had obviously missed the whole first page of the thread!


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## Bienvenidos

In Persian it's usually "mobil"


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## gao_yixing

In Chinese, we can also call it 大哥大(da ge da).


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## Flaminius

gao_yixing said:


> In Chinese, we can also call it 大哥大(da ge da).


Big Brother Big?  How does this come about?


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## charlie2

Flaminius said:


> Big Brother Big? How does this come about?


I don't think this term is still used. It will be understood as an "historical" term. You can see from this link what the mobile phones were like in the beginning. The text also tells the origin of the term "Big Brother Big" and when it was used.
On second thoughts, it is not impossible that, like fashion, the term is coming around after a cycle*.


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## gao_yixing

Flaminius said:


> Big Brother Big? How does this come about?


 
Hi
The head of sinister gangs in Hong Kong are called that. Due to their appearances with mobile phones in movies, cellular phone is also called 大哥大. But as the cell phones are becoming smaller and smaller in size, the name is used not as widely as 手机.
Regards,
Anthony


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## gao_yixing

charlie2 said:


> I don't think this term is still used. It will be understood as an "historical" term. You can see from this link what the mobile phones were like in the beginning. The text also tells the origin of the term "Big Brother Big" and when it was used.
> On second thoughts, it is not impossible that, like fashion, the term is coming around after a cycle.


 
This is also used occasionally. At least, my parents still call it in this way.
But I admit that it is a moribund expression.

Greetings,
Anthony


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## Flaminius

Thank you for the interesting etymology, Charlie and Yixing.

Yeah, 手机 (hand machine) sounds more familiar.


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## gao_yixing

Flaminius said:


> Thank you for the interesting etymology, Charlie and Yixing.
> 
> Yeah, 手机 (hand machine) sounds more familiar.


 
It's my pleasure.
By the way, is the term 手机 also used in Japan? I think many modern inventions' names in Chinese are from Japan, such as 电话, 电视.
Regards, 
Anthony


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## Flaminius

gao_yixing said:


> Is the term 手机 also used in Japan?


No.  We call them 携帯電話 (kētai denwa cf. #24) or 携帯 (kētai).  手机/手機 is not used at all (in fact, the former would mean a hand desk). 



> I think many modern inventions' names in Chinese are from Japan, such as 电话, 电视.


You are right about 电话 (telephone) but I think 电视 is a Chinese invention.


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## Kirpan

In Afrikaans: celphone/selfoon
In Dutch (as well in Flanders as in Holland): GSM/mobieltje or even 06 (as mobile numers start with 06)


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## Lexy82

Polish:

- komórka (or "komorka")
- telefon komórkowy (or "telefon komorkowy")


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## Etcetera

In Russian, it is моб*и*льный телеф*о*н or с*о*товый телеф*о*н.
But shortened forms are used much more frequently. I call my phone моб*и*льник. It's also possible to call cell phones моб*и*льный, моб*и*ла, моб*и*лка (the last two words are very informal). Тр*у*бка or even труб*а* is also possible, but it's very informal.
Сотовый is also possible, though less popular than мобильный. Both words are in fact adjectives.


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## parakseno

In Romanian we call it "telefon mobil" or shorter "mobil", but "telefon celular"/"celular" is also widely used.

I would also like to add that the Greek term for mobile phone "το κινητό" is the "shortened" form of "το _κινητό τηλέφωνο_" where the adjective "κινητός" means "mobile, portable".


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## ayed

In Arabic m we call it :
*Jawwal(جوال)*


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## Flaminius

ayed said:


> In Arabic m we call it :
> *Jawwal(جوال)*


I have recently learnt that a mobile phone company by that name operates in Palestinian Authority.  Could you tell how _jawwal_ the word came into existence?


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## VirtuousV

The official Korean word is 휴대전화 (携帶電話, Hyu-dae-jeon-hwa), but 핸드폰 (Haen-deu-pon, "handphone"), a kinda made-up word (so-called "Konglish"), is much more widely used. 

We learn in English classes not to say "handphone" when we speak in English, but some conversation teachers (who are native English speakers) confessed that they are so used to "handphones" in Korea that sometimes they slip to say "handphone" instead of "cell phone."


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## irene.acler

In *Italian *the complete name is _telefono cellulare,_ but in everyday speech we usually say _cellulare _or _cell_. Sometimes we also call it simply _telefono _or _telefonino_.


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## Etcetera

irene.acler said:


> ISometimes we also call it simply _telefono _or _telefonino_.


I.e., "small phone"?


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## irene.acler

Etcetera said:


> I.e., "small phone"?



Yes, "telefonino" is actually a "small phone"


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## Etcetera

Grazie Irene.


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## irene.acler

You're welcome, Etcetera!


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## AmelieC

In Swedish we say _mobiltelefon_ or for short _mobil_


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## Brave1

Hello, I live in Los Angeles and what I hear it called the most is "cell phone" short for cellular phone. Interesting thread....


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## mcibor

Lexy82 said:


> Polish:
> 
> - komórka (or "komorka")
> - telefon komórkowy (or "telefon komorkowy")



Just to give some explanation:
Polish:
formal - telefon komórkowy (cellular phone)
everyday use: komórka (cell)

Michal


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## GEmatt

gao_yixing said:


> Hi
> The head of sinister gangs in Hong Kong are called that. Due to their appearances with mobile phones in movies, cellular phone is also called 大哥大. But as the cell phones are becoming smaller and smaller in size, the name is used not as widely as 手机.
> Regards,
> Anthony


That's interesting. When I lived in Taiwan, 大哥大 is what pagers were referred to as. But that was a while back; maybe terminology has moved on with technology.





Godfather said:


> Swiss-German: Natel


Yes, from "*N*ationales *A*uto*tel*efon" - an origin that is about as defunct as that of "cellular", as Agnès E. has noted.

GEmatt


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## femmejolie

Euskara (Basque) :

Sakelako telefonoa (which literally means "pocket phone" ;sakela = pocket and -ko suffix = of )
Eskuko telefonoa (which literally means "hand telephone" ; esku= hand)
Segapotoa (slang, it's widely used and comes form sega=scythe and poto= pot, vessel,tin, can, case, container)


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## j'enris

telefon bimbit ( phones that you carry on your arms)


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## zaigucis

*Latvian: *mobilais tālrunis/telefons or just mobilais


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## mimi2

In Vietnamese:
*- điện thoại di động*
*- điện thoại cầm tay*


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## britmg14

In U.S we usually just say "cell", at least where I live.


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## Lugubert

gao_yixing said:


> In Chinese, we can also call it 大哥大(da ge da).


Made me remember a Swedish word used when they were new and mainly a plaything of fairly well-to-do executives: _Yuppienalle_. That means a teddy bear of a "Young Urban Professional".


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## Nizo

In *Esperanto*, it is called a _poŝtelefono_ (“pocket telephone”).


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## Spectre scolaire

Godfather said:


> Swiss-German: Natel [#9]


 Italian _in __Switzerland_: *nàtel*, “telefono cellulare”.

The word (with definition) is found in a site about _Il lessico italiano in Svizzera_ of which a section deals with _Lemmi esclusivi della lingua italiana in Svizzera_, see http://www.crcsoft.com/lessico/sezione1.html.
​


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## elroy

amikama said:


> Hebrew:
> *טלפון נייד* (_telefon nayad_) - mobile phone
> *טלפון סלולרי* (_telefon selulari_) - cellular phone


 In Palestinian Arabic we say (among other things) "belifon," which I _thought_ was a borrowing from a Hebrew word, "pelefon."  Is this not true?  Does the word even exist?


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## dn88

mcibor said:


> Just to give some explanation:
> Polish:
> formal - telefon komórkowy (cellular phone)
> everyday use: komórka (cell)
> 
> Michal



And a very informal variant: "kom".

dn88


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## amikama

elroy said:


> In Palestinian Arabic we say (among other things) "belifon," which I _thought_ was a borrowing from a Hebrew word, "pelefon." Is this not true? Does the word even exist?


פלאפון (Pelefon, literally "wonderphone") was the first cellular phone company in Israel, and so this trademark has become a generic name for _any_ cellular phone (even of other cellular companies, such as סלקום and 'אורנג). (Think of Xerox, Kleenex, Hoover...)
פלאפון (in sense of "a cellular phone") is rather informal and colloquial, if not slangy.

It's interesting (but not _very_ surprising ) that Palestinian Arabic borrowed "pelefon" from Hebrew. A thread about Hebrew borrowings in Palestinian Arabic would be interesting...


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## kusurija

Lithuanian: We say 
mobiliakas (slang)
mobilusis telefonas (mobile telephone)


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## eframono

In México we call it celular, cel, telefono, telcel, movistar... Sometimes I joke and call it "celulitis" jejeje.


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## xeneize

I must add that *portable* is *France French*, not _general french_.
In *Belgium* *French* the name is *GSM*.
In *Switzerland* *French *is *nàtel*, as in Switzerland German and Switzerland Italian.
And i didn't check, but I'd bet that, for example, in *Quèbec* they have another word too...
So, as someone else said, it's true: in *Switzerland Italian*, *nàtel* is the word used (never _telefonino_).

In *Sardinian* the names used are *tzellulare* or *telefoneddu*.


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## guymelef

simply, "cellphone"... some call it "mobile" from mobile phone, but usually it's the first one... in SMS messages, it's sometimes abbreviated to "c.p." or "cp"...


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## chriskardos

In Hungarian we say: 
Mobil (informal)
pronouncing it as the Americans do
and Mobil Telefon (formal) which i think everybody gets.


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## Vovan

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
The topic has been inspired by a thread about names for cell phones on "English Only":


> Juhasz said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There was a time when "cell" would have been common, but now it's obvious that "phone" would mean "cell phone."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> heypresto said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In BE we call them 'mobiles'. But I agree with Juhasz - we are nowadays likely to just say 'phone'.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Source: colloquial word for cell phone
Click to expand...

The same applies to my country: "a mobile"/"a cell", once so popular words in Russian, are often replaced with just "a phone" today. I wonder if the same process is being observed across the globe and other languages.


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## arn00b

Just phone in English for smartphone.  People usually say "house phone" or "landline" to refer to the traditional variety.  As mobile but non-smart phones have been mostly phased out, they are referred to as "dumb phones" when being specific, but the generic "phone" is now a smart one.


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## Wilma_Sweden

In Sweden, we've used mobil or mobiltelefon to refer to mobile/cell phones vs. telefon or hemtelefon for landline phones. Nowadays people seem to refer to their mobile also as telefon, particularly if they no longer have a landline. However, if you go shopping for a mobile phone in Sweden, you can buy a mobiltelefon or a smartphone 
(Voice & text only vs. smartphone). We use the English spelling and pronunciation of smartphone (and iPhone).


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## Gavril

I think the terms _cellphone_ and _mobile phone_ started to go out the door long before smartphones became popular. Once people started to abandon land-lines (as cellphones became more affordable in the 90s and 2000s), it became less and less necessary to distinguish between the two kinds of phones.

Smartphones just furthered this process: since _cellphone _(or _cell_) tended to be used for "non-smart" mobile phones, the disappearance/waning of these kinds of phones spelled the disappearance of the term.


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