Any language used by coastal and seafaring people can be expected to have one or more words for jellyfish, since jellies are found in oceanic waters around the globe—from surface waters to the deep. Jellyfish terms in other languages often reflect aspects of appearance, behavior or occurrence. Jellyfish enthusiast Juli Berwald has researched jellyfish and human-jelly-relationships in many countries. In her inspiring book with the title “Spineless” [1], I found my favorite description of cross-linguistic jellyfish names. Here is a passage from the chapter “Bloom” (chapter 22):
Juli Berwald continues with other interesting terms or phrases used for jellies in various languages. Since she does not include Dutch and German nouns for jellyfish, I like to add these two related words here: kwal and Qualle, respectively. According to my German handbook of word origins [2], the lower German (Niederdeutsch) word Qualle is in use since at least the 16th century. The word is assumed to be related to the German verb “quellen” (to swell) and, thus, “eine Qualle” (a jellyfish) is “something swollen.”
Based on the words in Berwald's book [1] and the IDL jellyfish page [3], I am here putting together a short cross-linguistic jellyfish vocabulary, covering selected languages:
[2] Duden Herkunftswörterbuch - Etymologie der deutschen Sprache. 3rd Edition. Dudenverlag, Mannheim, 2001.
[3] IDL: How to Say Jellyfish in Different Languages. Link: https://www.indifferentlanguages.com/words/jellyfish.
In Spain, Italy, and France, a jellyfish is named for the misunderstood mythological Medusa. Similarly, Israel calls jellies meduzot. In Latin America, besides medusas, jellies are called malaguas or agua mala, meaning “bad water.” Sometimes they are called lagrimas de mar, which pulls at the heart with its meaning: “tears of the sea.” More encouragingly, in Portuguese, jellyfish are known as água-viva, or “living water.” I give the award for the most creative of the Romance-language names to aguacuajada, which means “curdled water” in Spanish.
Juli Berwald, 2017
Juli Berwald continues with other interesting terms or phrases used for jellies in various languages. Since she does not include Dutch and German nouns for jellyfish, I like to add these two related words here: kwal and Qualle, respectively. According to my German handbook of word origins [2], the lower German (Niederdeutsch) word Qualle is in use since at least the 16th century. The word is assumed to be related to the German verb “quellen” (to swell) and, thus, “eine Qualle” (a jellyfish) is “something swollen.”
Based on the words in Berwald's book [1] and the IDL jellyfish page [3], I am here putting together a short cross-linguistic jellyfish vocabulary, covering selected languages:
- Arabic: quanadil albahr
- Chinese: haizhe
- Danish: vandmand, meaning “water man”
- Dutch: kwal
- English: jellyfish, with jelly as short form; also sea jelly
- Farsi: arood darya-i, meaning “sea bride”
- French: medusa
- German: Qualle
- Greek: médousa (μέδouσα)
- Hebrew: meduzot
- Icelandic: marglytta
- Indonesian: ubur-ubur
- Italian: medusa
- Malayalam (tip of India): kadalchori
- Norwegian: manet
- Japanese: kurage
- Spanish: medusa, aguacuajada
- Swedish: manet
- Turkish: deniz anası
- Vietnamese: sua
- Welsh (slang): psygod wibbly wobbly, meaning “wiggle wiggle fish”
References and more to explore
[1] Juli Berwald: Spineless. Riverhead Books, New York, 2017.[2] Duden Herkunftswörterbuch - Etymologie der deutschen Sprache. 3rd Edition. Dudenverlag, Mannheim, 2001.
[3] IDL: How to Say Jellyfish in Different Languages. Link: https://www.indifferentlanguages.com/words/jellyfish.
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