So the Romanian word for grandmother literally translates to “belonging to good.” In Romanian, the word is bună, or bunică, a combination of the word bun, meaning “good” and a Latin word-forming suffix that implies a belonging to or connection with whatever word you’re trying to emphasize. These last two most resemble the Latin word for grandmother, via. In Spanish, the term is abuela, or if you want to be cozy and cute about it, you’d call her your abuelita, which means “little grandma.” In Portuguese, the word is avó. As previously mentioned, in French the word is grandmère, but in Italian, it’s nonna. Strangely enough, the romance languages all have different words for grandmother that hardly resemble each other. Words for Grandmother in the Romance Languages Sometimes the word ma is added, so nani ma and dadi ma. There are many words for grandmother in the numerous dialects of Hindi, but in most of them, your nani is your mother’s mother, and your dadi is your father’s mother. In Finnish, the word is isoäiti, a combination of the words iso meaning “great” or “big” and âiti, meaning “mother.” Also used are isänäiti for father’s mother and äidinäiti for mother’s mother. Norwegian also uses mormor and farmor, though sometimes bestemor, and sometimes forelder or forelderen for just “grandparent,” or besteforeldere for “grandparents.” In Icelandic, the word is simply amma, and often the person’s first name is added to the end. It’s the same in Danish, but they have another word for just “grandmother,” which is bedstemor. In Swedish, mormor means, “mother’s mother,” and farmor means, “father’s mother.” In the Norse languages, the word for grandmother changes depending on whether the person is your maternal or paternal grandmother. In the south of Wales, you would use mam-gu, but in northern Wales, you’d use nain. In the Manx language, your grandparents are your shennayryn, and your grandmother is your grannee, or mwarree, or your shenn voir. In the Celtic languages, for example, Gaelic, it’s maiméo. In English, the most common nicknames for grandmother are grandma, gramma, gran, nan, and nana. The French word for grandmother is grandmèrebut often the nickname méméis used. It was replaced by grandame, literally meaning “old lady,” due to the French influence over English. In Old English, the word was ealdemodor, which sounds a lot like “old mother,” and likely has roots in Old Norse. Origins of the Word Grandmother in English Some are quite formal, and some sound as sweet and warm as a nicely baked cookie. In honor of my grandmother, who passed away from Covid-19 last week at the amazing age of 100, I wanted to share some of the words for grandmother in various languages from around the world.
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