Non-English palindromes

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bert - 12 Jan 2007 20:29 GMT

On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
if languages other than English contain as many,
or indeed any, palindromic words (like racecar)
or sentences (like Madam, I'm Adam).
--

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Skitt - 12 Jan 2007 20:46 GMT

> On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
> if languages other than English contain as many,
> or indeed any, palindromic words (like racecar)
> or sentences (like Madam, I'm Adam).

Latvian may have a few sentences, but I remember only one.
Alus ari ira sula (beer too is juice).

I should note that the "ira" is a regionalism for the usual "ir".

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Skitt (in Hayward, California)
http://www.geocities.com/opus731/

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Mike Lyle - 12 Jan 2007 20:55 GMT

> > On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
> > if languages other than English contain as many,
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> I should note that the "ira" is a regionalism for the usual "ir".

I find that Wikipedia is fascinating on the subject. This should keep
you and the young relative busy for a while:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome

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Mike.

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Mark Brader - 13 Jan 2007 07:36 GMT

"Bert":

> > > On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
> > > if languages other than English contain as many,
> > > or indeed any, palindromic words (like racecar)
> > > or sentences (like Madam, I'm Adam).

Mike Lyle:

> I find that Wikipedia is fascinating on the subject. This should keep
> you and the young relative busy for a while:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome

And when you're done with the article, try the "in other languages" list.
Just because there's an article on the same subject doesn't mean the
content will be the same. The French article, for example, contains
examples of palindromes not only in French but in 16 other languages
(including at least one in English that isn't in the English article).

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Mark Brader, Toronto | "What caused the submarine to sink?"
msb@vex.net | "Dad, it was the 20,000 leaks!!"

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mUs1Ka - 12 Jan 2007 20:55 GMT

> On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
> if languages other than English contain as many,
> or indeed any, palindromic words (like racecar)
> or sentences (like Madam, I'm Adam).

http://www.derf.net/palindromes/old.palindrome.html

From the first Google page I got with "palindrome german".

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Ray
UK

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Leslie Danks - 12 Jan 2007 21:00 GMT

> On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
> if languages other than English contain as many,
> or indeed any, palindromic words (like racecar)
> or sentences (like Madam, I'm Adam).

There's a whole Wikipaedia article about German palindromes here:

<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrom>

which I found by Googling on

palindrom beispiele

(palindrome examples).

If you do the same for other languages you will doubtless find what you are
looking for. Enjoy...

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Les

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Oleg Lego - 13 Jan 2007 04:58 GMT

The bert entity posted thusly:

>On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
>if languages other than English contain as many,
>or indeed any, palindromic words (like racecar)
>or sentences (like Madam, I'm Adam).

Non. Well, oui, but that isn't palindromic.

Ein Neger mit Gazelle zagt im Regen nie!

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Gerry - 13 Jan 2007 15:21 GMT

"bert" <bert.hutchings@btinternet.com> wrote in message

> On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
> if languages other than English contain as many,
> or indeed any, palindromic words (like racecar)
> or sentences (like Madam, I'm Adam).

Is your search limited to natural languages? There are palindromes in C
(the programming languages). You can view a palindromic C program at
http://www.acme.com/software/c.otto.c/
(It was the winner of the Obfuscated C Contest for 1987.)

Gerry

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Ian Noble - 15 Jan 2007 08:19 GMT

>On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
>if languages other than English contain as many,
>or indeed any, palindromic words (like racecar)
>or sentences (like Madam, I'm Adam).

I learned a simple Japanese one (palindromic when it's written in
hiragana):

Kono koneko neko no ko.

Cheers - Ian

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-=Kesti Pauli, alias Allo=- - 27 Jan 2007 13:08 GMT

> On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
> if languages other than English contain as many,
> or indeed any, palindromic words (like racecar)
> or sentences (like Madam, I'm Adam).

In Finland, there is a this palindrom:
"saippuakivikauppias" (soapstone seller)

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I live in Finland, near the city of Mänttä.
This city is in central Finland.

If you like, take a look my homepage
www.isoallo.net and select "In English",
where is the some pages in English.

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Lars Enderin - 27 Jan 2007 16:06 GMT

-=Kesti Pauli, alias Allo=- skrev:

>> On behalf of a younger family member, I wonder
>> if languages other than English contain as many,
>> or indeed any, palindromic words (like racecar)
>> or sentences (like Madam, I'm Adam).
>
> In Finland, there is a this palindrom:

You need no article (a) before "this".
Better: In Finnish, we have this palindrome:

> "saippuakivikauppias" (soapstone seller)

Since compound words are so easy to form in Finnish, I guess there is no
theoretical limit on how many palindromic words can be constructed.

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Glenn Knickerbocker - 29 Jan 2007 23:16 GMT

The standard beginning Georgian textbook for children, "deda ena"
("mother tongue"), begins with "ai ia" ("here is a violet"). In my
collection of Georgian song texts, I find only a few palindromic words:

ara "no"
did "big" (dative or adverbial case)
rogor "how"
titit "finger" (instrumental case)

I don't find any longer palindromes, and in palindromic permutations of
two words I don't notice any particularly sensible ones right off, though
I'm not at all fluent. (My computer's chugging away on permutations of
three words, but the list is bigger than I realized and I lazily used a
brute-force check of all permutations rather than any smart selection by
matching first and last letters, so it'll take a while just to get
through the a's . . . )

¬R

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

Non-English palindromes