# coffee



## Encolpius

Hello, when having my coffee this morning I've got the urge to translate the word into as many languages as possible. I'm starting with Hungarian. 

*Hungarian*: kávé


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## Stoggler

*Welsh*: coffii
*Scots Gaelic*: cofaidh (despite the spelling, it's pronounced pretty much the same as the English word)

Both are borrowings immediately from English


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## Sempervirens

Caffè

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee#Etymology

S.V


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## atcheque

Bonjour,

*français :* café.
*Deutsch:* Kaffee.
*čeština:* káva.


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## apmoy70

Greek:

*«Καφές»* [kaˈfes] (masc.) < Ottoman Tur. kahve


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## ger4

Estonian: kohv


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## ThomasK

In Dutch we can drink _*koffie *_in a _*café*_...


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## Encolpius

Holger2014 said:


> Estonian: kohv



Is there a connection between the German "Kaffee *koch*en" and Estonian *koh*v?


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## 810senior

In Japanese, コーヒーcoohii, originates from English coffee. (I know the pronunciation in Japanese gets too far away from the original one...)
Sometimes we use 珈琲(written by Kanji) as well and the pronunciation is same. (Personally I prefer the kanji transcription due to its archaic taste. )


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## Dymn

*Catalan*: _cafè_
*Spanish*: _café_

And for these simple translations: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coffee


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## 涼宮

Navajo seems to be one of the few languages where the word doesn't use the 'k' sound or is similar in some way to ''coffee'' . Eastern Navajo ahwééh, Western navajo gohwééh , you can hear the latter here.

In Oromo it's buna.


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## Encolpius

Yes, fascinating --- k is missing in Navajo ---- but they use -h- -- just like Estonian / Japanese --- so either -k- or -h-


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## ger4

Encolpius said:


> Is there a connection between the German "Kaffee *koch*en" and Estonian *koh*v?


 That would make sense... but the reason why Estonian replaced -f- with -hv- is that there is no 'f' in native Estonian words - 'f' only appears in more recent loanwords, traditionally it has been replaced with 'p' (word-initially, as in '*F*rance' > '*P*rantsusmaa') or -hv- following vowels.


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## AutumnOwl

Holger2014 said:


> Estonian: kohv


Finnish: kahvi

Swedish: kaffe
Gutamål (Modern Gutnish): kaffi


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## Stoggler

涼宮 said:


> In Oromo it's buna.



A rare example of a word not of the coffee/cafe/caffe/kava "template".  I wonder where "buna" comes from.  Oromo is spoken in Ethiopia, from where coffee originates: does coffee specically come from the Oromo area?


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## kakapadaka

Polish: _kawa
_Portuguese_: café
_


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## ger4

涼宮 said:


> In Oromo it's buna.





Stoggler said:


> A rare example of a word not of the coffee/cafe/caffe/kava "template". I wonder where "buna" comes from. Oromo is spoken in Ethiopia, from where coffee originates:[...]





> The Oromo considered coffee to be buna qala (literally “coffee [or bean] slaughter” or more commonly the “Tears of Waga” [supreme being]) where the coffee berry was cooked with barley and butter before being eaten as a means of sustenance or as part of birthing rituals.  Local ancient proverbs best describe the role of coffee in everyday Ethiopian life as buna dabo naw, simply meaning “coffee is our bread”. >>


Somali seems to have a similar word: *bun*, also *qaxwo* or *kafe*. Amharic: *buna*, Tigrinya: *bun *... >> ... >>


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## OneStroke

Encolpius said:


> Hello, when having my coffee this morning I've got the urge to translate the word into as many languages as possible. I'm starting with Hungarian.
> 
> *Hungarian*: kávé



You've got interesting urges... 

Chinese: 咖啡 咖啡 kāfēi


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## Ghabi

Hello. Some duplications can be avoided by the perusal of a previous thread: Coffee.


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## ahmedcowon

涼宮 said:


> Navajo seems to be one of the few languages where the word doesn't use the 'k' sound or is similar in some way to ''coffee'' . Eastern Navajo ahwééh, Western navajo gohwééh , you can hear the latter here.
> 
> In Oromo it's buna.



Interesting.
In Arabic, the standard word is قهوة /*qahwah*/ but is pronounced as "*ahwah*" or "*gahwah*" in most of the dialects

"Coffee bean" is بن /*bun*/ and "brown" is بني /*bunni*/


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## ger4

ahmedcowon said:


> [...] "Coffee bean" is بن /*bun*/ and "brown" is بني /*bunni*/


Perhaps this is a well-known fact but it was new to me: the English term 'coffee *bean*' (German: 'Kaffee*bohne*') seems to be derived from */bun/*:


> _Kaffeebohne f. (18. Jh.); Bohne schließt sich volksetymologisch an _[derived from]_ arab. bunn ‘Frucht des Kaffeestrauches’ _['fruit of the coffee plant']_ an. _dwds.de


Edit - it has been mentioned before (fdb, EHL Forum): 





> Coffee is indigenous to the highlands of Ethiopia/Eritrea and was introduced from there to the Yemen quite late, I think in the 17th century. The Arabic name bunn is borrowed from Tigre or Tigrinna. In Yemen people still say bunn for "coffee" (the drink), but elsewhere in Arabic it is used only for the berry. Coffee was introduced from Yemen to Istanbul and from there to Europe. The Dutch indentified (by folk etymology) the native name bunn with the Dutch word for "bean", hence our usage "coffee bean". Coffee is of course not made of beans but of berries.http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2417647&p=12223326#post12223326


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## Grefsen

AutumnOwl said:


> Swedish: kaffe


The same word is used for coffee in the other Scandinavian countries as well.

*Danish: * _kaffe_

*Norwegian:* _kaffe

_


ThomasK said:


> In Dutch we can drink _*koffie *_in a _*café*_...


In Norwegian you drink _kaffe _in a _kaf__é__._


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## Maroseika

*Ossetian*:

хъауа [*haua*] or [hawa] < Arab [qahva] (recently introduced variant). Arab [q] is interpreted in Ossetion as [h, like Quran - Хъуыран [huiran] or [hwiran]
къофи [*kofi*] < Russian кофе (traditional variant)


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## kloie

In Croatian it is kava and in Serbian it is kafa


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